RWBY Knights Of Remnant
by playererror404
Summary: On a distant Planet of Patch Two Padawans have been lost, their only hope coming from a Silver Eyed girl who is about to step foot into a Galaxy far bigger than she could ever imagine and try and save it... well at least she wont be alone. (note set in the KOTOR timeline)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A simple, more honest soul

Ruby Rose gulped as she approached the Sith Checkpoint, Given what she was planning the fact she didn't even come close to having anything resembling the legal documentation that would let her actually pass through the gate. Still she wasn't worried, after all she had a thermal detonator clenched in one hand and her other was firmly gripping her blaster. So she felt relatively safe.

" _Ruby you there?"_ A voice asked over the earpiece Ruby had resting in her left ear. The Speaker was Ruby's Half Sister Yang; who at this point in time was situated on top of a run down tower with a very high powered blaster focused on the guards at the gate.

"I hear you." Ruby said as she casually slipped between an arguing alien couple and continued down the packed market street keeping her silver eyes trained on the Sith checkpoint.

" _Good, you ready?"_ Yang asked as she tracked her Sister down the bustling alien market, struggling to keep track of her Sister in her ratty red jacket amongst the various alien Species currently living on Patch, all of whom seemed to have picked this day to visit the market instead of any other freaking day. Probably because it was one of the few days where the rain wasn't falling.

"Yup." Ruby said, nodding at a Dug who was attempting to strangle a merchant well known for his… lacklustre deals. And continuing her path to the gate.

" _You still want to go through with this?"_ Yang asked as she eyed a couple of Sith troops getting near to Ruby, her gun naturally moving onto them as she got ready to blast them the second they looked at her sister the wrong way.

Ruby didn't answer, partly because she didn't trust herself to give the right answer and partly because she heard something very interesting slip out of one of the Sith Troopers mouths.

"…Can't believe they want more people guarding those two, their just some Padawans…" The Trooper muttered darkly as he stomped off down the market path, shoving past a Gungan couple as they went, sending their fruit flying as she fell to the ground.

"Padawans?" Ruby asked, turning to look back at the troopers, really wanting to turn back around and hear more of the conversation.

" _What?"_ Yang asked, irritation in her voice as she looked down at the silver eyed girl.

"That Trooper!" Ruby hissed as she ducked into a small side ally, crouching low and looking at the retreating backs of the silver armored troops (Though due to the generally wet atmosphere of patch was the armor was more brown and dull by now) "He mentioned Padawans!"

" _What? As in the Jedi kind?"_ Yang asked, slightly taken aback now she knew what Ruby had heard.

"Yes! Yang do you have any idea how big a deal this is!" Ruby muttered as she crouched down, ignoring how much her boots were sinking into the muddy ground and the fact that she probably had tetanus from just touching the rusty metal building behind her.

" _Ruby that can't be what they said."_ Yang said. _"If the Jedi were going to come they would have arrived during the invasion, it can't have been them."_

"But…" Ruby began before Yang interrupted her, a slight edge of irritation in her voice as she spoke.

" _Ruby we've been planning this raid for the last month! We aren't throwing it away so you can obsess over something you heard two random troopers talking about so we can save people who aren't hear!"_ Yang snapped.

Ruby gritted her teeth, While Yang was probably right for perfectly logical reasons she suspected that wasn't the actual reason she held this attitude. Yang came from Two Mandalorians and she had picked up some of their legendary disdain for the Jedi order… them not showing up to help while the Sith took over her home hadn't helped matters. Ruby suspected she wouldn't have wanted to go in and help even if she did have more evidence.

A loud horn honking jolted Ruby, suddenly causing her to remember she had perfectly logical reasons for letting the Padawan thing slide for now. Specifically the Hover Truck coming through right now.

Ruby watched as the Hover ruck turned left, just as it had for the last month, moving down the boggy road as Ruby ran to intercept it, stopping on a small ledge just above the Trucks path at the bottom of a hill. Ruby tried to calm her nerves as she gripped hilt of her blaster. This plan was crazy, a sign that she'd come up with it. The main thing that would prove it belonged to the red headed fifteen year old would come if this actually worked. (Which admittedly had proved more effective than you'd think)

Just as the Hover Truck passed underneath her she jumped, freeing her blaster from its holster and blasting a hole into the roof of the convoy truck. Granted it wasn't a big hole, but then again, it didn't need to be seeing as Thermal detonators weren't that big either. As she dropped the detonator Ruby couldn't help but let off a small cheeky smile before she dived off the truck, running as fast as she could towards the relative safety of the old Mountain Glenn Subway system, diving down the stairs faster than a normal person should have been capable of as she covered her ears as the small bomb went off, with a force far stronger than anything that size should have been capable of. Sending the truck up and practically vaporising it.

" _Ruby, confirmed destruction!"_ Yang said, Ruby knew full well she was fist pumping at the moment. _"I get a feeling we pissed them off today!"_

Ruby nodded as she scrambled down further into the station. Happy the plan seemed to have worked. Normally losing a single truck wouldn't really damage the Sith's presence on Patch in the slightest… Of course that assumed it wasn't carrying experimental Dust Crystals. Fairly unique to planets in the Remnant System no one was entirely sure over what exactly the crystals were, other than the fact they were and effective power source once you refined them properly… and if you happened to destroy them in transit to a lab which was meant to study them and you just set them back at least a month while they made more…

" _That'll have them fuming!"_ Yang grinned as she hauled herself of the roof of the tower she was currently stationed on, sliding down and jumping off the edge as she headed to the West station to rendezvous with Ruby who was traveling from East station. _"Plus that raid was so short I doubt they saw you!"_

"I hope not." Ruby muttered as she sank a boot into something infinitely less pleasant than the mud outside, presumably left by that Patch Frog sprawled across the neighbouring tracks. This was not going to be a fun walk home.

…

The Sisters reunited at the station with Ruby giving a very firm warning not to say anything as she stomped up in her dung stained boots, which to her credit Yang didn't (Assuming you didn't count barely hidden giggling as saying anything) as the two began the walk home.

Patch wasn't the nicest planet to live on, hell technically it was a moon to its home planet of Vale which frequently dominated the skyline if you happened to look up… assuming the rain clouds weren't there and that was not exactly a common occurrence. As a result mud squelched around you with every foot step you took and also lead to a lot of buildings built on the moon from sinking into the ground by a few feet. On top of making the terrain a complete nightmare to navigate normally the rain also had another nasty side effect, most notably the fact it was slightly acidic. Said rain was the reason new buildings never looked it, one rainfall was enough to ruin any metal, hence why every building on the moon was rusted.

This also lead to some problems for the locals/anyone visiting. Because shockingly the rain which damaged the metal super structures was also rather troublesome for anything organic that wasn't made to live on the planet. The usual strategy to deal with this was to cover everything, hence why everyone wore full body outfits at all times (Usually with a helmet or hood to protect their head)

This rain was also what the two Sisters were currently dealing with.

"Well this kills the mood." Ruby muttered, looking up at the green tinted clouds as she pulled the hood on her jacket up to cover her face.

"Oh come on Sis!" Yang grinned as she took the bag containing the meat she'd just brought of the four armed seller. "It's not so bad!"

Ruby scowled under her hood. It was all well and good for her to say that in her Beskar forged Mandalorian armor which was roughly one hundred years old and one of the few things that could survive Patch's frequent acid rain storms unharmed. When you had that to wear the rain wasn't so bad, when you only had a hood that had already suffered quite a few storms and was only just holding together… well it was never going to end well.

Still Ruby didn't respond, they were close to their home anyway and within five minutes they were at their front door. The Half Sisters lived out of a disused swoop bike garage, brought off the owner for barley anything after new construction made it a complete nightmare to get from the building to the track. Well that was what he'd told them, as it turns out the other reason was that out of the three doors only one of them worked properly (the rest had had their mechanisms melt due to the rain) and the maintenance wasn't worth paying for.

Still it had some upsides, a stable home that was undeniably theirs was a nice thing to have and it had enough room to hold all their stuff… Which admittedly wasn't much. If you were to count all the sisters worldly possessions you would find it amounted to two rails of clothing (most of which was Yangs) two mattresses for sleeping on and a pillow they alternated using every night, a restored swoop bike that came with the 'house', a slightly dodgy hologram projector for communications, a series of crates for sitting on, one small detox booth (Basically a shower but with the advantages of dealing with the acid rain if it got on the users skills) and Ruby's pride and joy.

Crescent Rose was a land speeder, well had been anyway, the machine Ruby had turned the vehicle into was anything but standard. Painted a stunning Crimson every single component in the speeder had been stripped out and replaced. The three small engines that were meant to be located at the back of the speeder had been replaced by two bigger engines, each one tweaked so it produced four times the power the units were meant to be capable of. The seats and controls had all been stripped out for more responsive units that actually fit her fifteen year old proportions. Then there was the reactor, No one but Ruby understood what went on under the hood of Crescent Rose, all anyone knew was that the engine practically sung a maelstrom of power and noise whenever she used it and that all her weapons never ran out of power and that was usually a problem for anyone that raced her.

"Okay I'm going to call Nora and get payment for that job." Yang said as pulled her helmet off with one hand (letting her insanely well kept blond hair flow free dramatically) and gesturing to the detox booth with the other. "You get cleaned up."

Ruby nodded as she dived in, feeling the relief as the burning feeling of the rain was washed off her as she stood naked in the shower, letting the liquid soak her before she stepped out, grinning as she walked over to her railing and pulling a baggy grey shirt on and one of her black skirts up as she walked over to Crescent Rose and began trying to unclog the main blasters on the front.

Ruby worked for a few minutes while Yang finished her talk with Nora, walking over to her and grinning as she poked one of Ruby's leg which stuck out of the side of her speeder.

"Yeah?" Ruby asked as she slid herself out from under her speeder to look up at her Sister, who was grinning and held out a package.

"We got paid." She said with a grin.

Ruby burst into a massive grin, no going hungry for a while now.

"That's great!" Ruby said as she stood up, walking over to retrieve her spare boots and pulled them on while saying: "That means less pressure on me tonight."

Yang rolled her eyes at her Sister as she jumped into her speeder while she opened the door. It was only her history of being stupid and reckless she would be furious at her Sister and her racing habits. However she wasn't exactly a stranger to the circuit and her Sister did have a knack for it, her winnings had gotten them through some tough months before.

"Just try not to wreck okay." She said as the door opened and Ruby edged her speeder out, made the slightly tight turn and headed off towards Juniors circuit.

…

Junior as he was known was man with his fingers in many pies, be that the perfectly legal bar/gambling den that bore his name, or the illegal black market smuggling he was involved in or possibly his most well known enterprise, the Patch Underground racing circuit.

Well known for it's 'anything goes' attitude towards basically everything Junior was a haven for anyone wanting information/rare goods/or just the most intensive race of their life. Anyone could show up in anything (provided it adhered to very loose size restrictions) and compete for a variety of prizes. Mostly credits but sometimes you found something else, like a set of Mandalorian armor a certain blond had won or even a broken speeder (Ironically given to its user so the silver eyed girl would stay out of trouble)

Ruby parked Crescent Rose on the start line (placement depended on how early you got their) before jumping out and looking around at what the competition had brought with them.

Maybe it was the fact Ruby spent hours buried in all sorts of machinery herself but she couldn't help but examine every other racer on the line. Every vehicle that showed up here was either extensively modified or a rich kid playing around in some ludicrously expensive fresh of the line swoop bike that nearly always ended up wrecked.

Ruby walked up the rows, smiling as she looked at everything that had showed up, earning a lot of dirty looks off the various racers. Which was fairly understandable given that most of the time a racer getting this close to his opponent was to sabotage their vehicle, which was the one rule Junior actually bothered to enforce.

"Hey Rose!" A voice called, Ruby jolted as she turned to look around at the speaker.

"Hey Miltia…" Ruby said, turning to look at one of the twins Junior hired to enforce his 'no sabotage rule' One of the Malachite Sisters, two young girls who's habbit of wearing dresses and impractical heals didn't stop their ability to lay out opponents over twice their size and armed with more than a couple of Vibroblades. Simply put, you did not mess with these two girls if you felt like walking away from the circuit with all your limbs.

"Shouldn't you be keeping an eye on your speeder?" The girl asked, fixing her green eyes on Crescent Rose as Ruby responded.

"It's okay, I got the starter." She said, showing her the control chip, which was usually the easiest bit to take of before one of the Malachite Sisters caught you. "Actually was interested in the prize haul today."

Miltia rolled her eyes.

"Ruby you know how this works, the prizes are revealed after the race." Miltia scowled as Ruby flinched but continued.

"Actually, I was interested in a possible exchange…"

That changed Miltia's attitude.

"Come with me." She said simply as her sister Melanie walked out, standing near Crescent Rose while Milta took Ruby over to Junior.

"Junior." Milta called as Junior provided his regular payment to the Sith who were meant to be stopping the races if they caught the organiser to make sure they failed to find anything out today.

The two Sith troopers walked away and sat down at the stands near the view screens (the races were a great way to kill spare time on their shift which were never going to work) as Junior turned to Ruby… Surprised to see her hear tonight.

"Rose… This is new." He said as he sat down in his private seat to look at the screens, pouring himself a green drink and sipping at it as Ruby stood awkwardly at the door. "You want an exchange?"

What was meant by 'Exchange' in this situation was that a racer wanted something specific instead of the prize if they won, given he sometimes needed time to move assets around sometimes to get what the racer asked for it was sensible to do it before the race given these things tended to dispersed very quickly (Loses tended not to stop at the finish line and just headed home afterwards) He mostly did this on the grounds that it guarantied an interest in something and if they couldn't win the race then they'd have to go through more conventional methods if they wanted to get it, mainly more credits than they'd normally like to pay. So long as he kept racers happy by holding up his end of the deal when they actually won racers would keep trying it and he made money on things he never would have guessed.

"Yes." Ruby said, forcing the word out as she took a few steps towards Junior. "I heard something from a couple of Sith troopers today and I want to see if you know anything more about it."

Junior took another sip of his drink before raising an eyebrow and saying: "I might know something, depends what it's about."

Ruby steeled herself for a second before taking a deep breath and saying:

"I want to know anything about the Padawans they said they were holding."

Junior looked at the Silver eyed girl for a second before responding.

"If I have anything it will be waiting for you at the finish line." He said simply.

Ruby nodded, a part of her had been expecting that; Junior couldn't know everything all the time but he could find information very quickly if people wanted it. Ruby was always good for it due to her young age making her very good for betting on. So she might get lucky.

A part of her thought she should make a jokey comment before leaving, something about how she'd be seeing him there, but the words didn't come so she exited silently, walking over to her speeder, reattaching the starter and getting ready for the lights to flash green.

Most of her opponents were trying to psych themselves up, convincing themselves that their machines would hold together, they would win this race, they were going to come out of this with all their limbs. Ruby didn't. She didn't need to. Crescent Rose was easily the best built vehicle on this start line and Ruby was far better than her age gave her any right to be.

Ruby smiled as the light went green, she slammed the throttle forwards, this was an old track and she'd ran it before, she could gun it here. Crescent Rose shot of the line, darting forwards as Ruby kept one firm hand on the throttle and one of the wheel.

As per usual some of the racers hadn't even made it off the starting line properly. The one fool brave enough to bring a Pod Racer had suffered a failure when the beam connecting his engines had failed, both of which had gone flying, not that the pilot noticed because his racer was to busy being sent flying as a racer rammed him up the back, clearly not expecting the man in front of him to stop instantly.

Ruby grinned despite herself, never bring anything fancy to these races, it never worked she thought as she shot past the crash and entered the main portion of the race through the old Dust processing plant.

Originally it was only the Schnee mining corporation on Patch and their old facility had been cutting edge at the time of its construction. Now it was old, worn out and only used for races like these. Keeping up speed while also avoiding a crash was something most racers failed spectacularly in.

The first stretch was simply enough, a straight line along the main bridge which lead to the facility's main gate. Long ago this had been a smooth bridge that would have been a fantastic opportunity to see how fast your racer could go. However, in the present the bridge was a half falling apart mess and gunning it relied on getting the one specific line of still intact plating and everyone went for that so Ruby went for the more viable strategy. So long as you kept your speed sensible you could take a more indirect path and avoid most of the fighting for the line and not lose any real ground.

Ruby grinned as she shot through the main gate, out of sixteen racers only eight were still in it, the bridge was good at filtering out the weaker racers, now it was serious time.

As Ruby threaded her speeder down the tight right hand corner that lead to the next stage one of the banes of her existence came around the corner. Pigs as she called them, racers who thought that nothing being able to ram them would give them a victory, just make a big thing with about fifty times more engines than necessary that nothing could move and you'd win.

Ruby scowled, she knew who that driver was. Cardin.

 _That unbelievable…_

Somehow he'd managed to make his racer even worse since the last time she saw it, a slate grey hunk of flying scrap. Ruby growled as she looked up at Cardin from his high vantage point. She doubted he'd even seen her pull up next to him… well, no reason to correct him of that assumption.

Ruby grinned, knowing what she was going to do as soon as they hit the fourth stage of the race, still; she better get there first, preferably without being noticed.

 _Edge time._

Ruby broke of from Cardin, the normal path to continuing this race would be to head straight down the main factory production line before making a large left turn into the shipping yard and dodging between the rusting cargo cranes. However, Ruby knew a way of avoiding all of these and cutting a sizeable chunk out of the race if you were smart and small enough.

Ruby approached her break off point she got ready, not thinking about the timing for it. She'd never had to, something always just let her know what to do. So, she didn't think about ramping the throttle, she just did as soon as she knew when to. Forcing the speeder to jump up down a very narrow corridor, skimming along on some of the damaged piping as sparks flew from the speeder as its underside ran along the pipe as the shear force of her engines drove the speeder forwards. She knew full well the scraping was going to ruin the paint and possibly rip part of the underside off if she wasn't careful.

Soon she was off the pipes and all she had to do was let Crescent Rose do her thing as it shot forwards, bursting out into the main facility with the cranes behind her as she drove forwards, seeing Cardin's shocked expression in the parking camera. She then saw his look of fury as he rammed his throttle forwards as his pig of a racer pulled next to Ruby's speeder.

This was another moment where Ruby just knew what to do, as Cardin pulled up next to her she grabbed the throttle, pulling it back before sliding sideways and darting forwards, grinning as Cardin crashed into a wall… and another racer Ruby hadn't seen.

 _Six left._

Ruby grinned, these guys were good but the rest of the track was straight forwards, the most you were required to do was dodge a collapsed processing tower and that was nothing for Ruby to do. She easily threaded herself between her opponents, slipping between them as she climbed places, not even flinching when the leader went for a nasty ram over the open sea of the port, simply shooting forwards as his attempt backfired and he sent himself crashing into the ocean.

Ruby had a massive smile on her face as she crossed the line, looking over at Junior who was clapping as she drove over to him.

"Congratulations, Impressive flying." He said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a data pad. "This and your share of the winnings are yours."

"So there was something?" Ruby said as she took the pad of Junior before the credits, a sign to Junior he really should have learnt about the situation sooner, she would have paid well for that pad if it meant more to her than the credits.

"That's what the Trooper claimed." Miltia said with a huge smirk as she approached hr. "And he was very eager to impress me when I stole it."

"Okay." Ruby said as she angled Crescent Rose back home. Time to see if she'd won anything of value.

...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Little short for a Sith

Ruby hadn't gone home that night, she knew Yang would be out celebrating having some money for the rest of the night (Which usually meant bringing someone over and when you only have one room in your entire house this is not somewhere you wanted to be) and Ruby had something more important to concern herself with.

The tablet in front of her was a data pad stolen of a Sith General, Ruby didn't quite know how Miltia had gotten a hold of it, but she suspected it involved putting hands in private places and a lot of saliva exchanging. What she did know was that it was full of useful information.

Sat with her feet up on Crescent Rose's dashboard Ruby was parked under a canopy, fully aware that if the build up of water burnt through the canvass she was in for a very unpleasant time when it hit her. Still she wasn't thinking about that, her focus was on the information the stolen pad provided her.

Most of it was useless, a combination of private notes, procedure reminders and other such useless information. The interesting bit was found in one of the last articles on the pad.

 _05/07/49: This is a general notice to all Troopers, security is to be tripled, we have two high security prisoners which must be handled carefully. Two Padawans of the Jedi order were smuggled onto the planet via a routine cargo ship and arrested at a checkpoint when a mind trick failed._

 _These two are dangerous and must be treated with extreme caution. Due to their Force skills all guards must be on radio only communication and are not to remove their armor and must carry Vibroblades._

The rest of the document was basically a run down of procedures for keeping the two trapped, not helpful seeing as Ruby wanted to get them **out.** Still she thought it might have been useful later when she was planning the break out, she had time and could have figured something out… except for the last paragraph of the data pad made her drop the pad in shock.

… _These two are to be contained until the 09_ _th_ _where upon Darth Taurus will arrive to take the two Jedi for interrogation on the orders home world, the prisoners should be ready for transfer at…_

Ruby gasped and snatched the pad up off the ground, her eyes agape as she looked at the words.

The date the Padawans were going to be taken was tomorrow, she didn't have time to plan anything out, she had ten hours before a Sith master came to the planet.

Ruby knew what she had to do, she fired Crescent Rose up and shot off, she had to get into that base fast and she knew one person who could help her do it.

…

"Ruby!" Nora cried as she answered her door, seeing the red jacketed girl outside her door. "This is… really weird? What are you doing here at this time? You did get paid right?" she asked, her head tilted to the side as she looked at the other girl as she darted inside.

"The pay came in fine, but look, look Nora, might be an odd question but do you have anyway of getting inside that base?" She asked, gesturing in the vague direction of the Sith base behind her.

"Erm… I got some ideas but why do you need it now?" Nora asked as she flicked her ginger hair out of eyes to look at the Silver eyed girl who held out her pad. Which Nora snatched and read at a lightning fast pace.

Nora gasped as she read through her document, especially when she got to the end, muttering:

"He got my message…"

"Who?" Ruby asked, looking at Nora as she ran off to her room, forcing her sofa aside so she could reach down and pull a loose panel out of her wall, looking at the newly created hole in the wall and she ducked down and crawled into it.

"…A long time ago I had a friend, well, sort of like a brother? Nah friend, it's less creepy like that, anyway he was recruited into the jedi order a long time ago but we stayed in touch, then when the Sith invaded I tried to get a message through, never thought he got it, maybe they were sent because of my message!" Nora beamed as Ruby followed her into the secret passageway.

"Nora the Sith invaded two years ago." Ruby pointed out as she entered Nora's horde.

"Details." She said simply as she stood up, surrounded by her hundreds of modified blasters, nearly all of which were capable of putting a destroyer's turbo lasers to shame. "Come on, we need to get us some disguises." She said as she showed Ruby towards two sets of Sith armor.

"How did you get these?" Ruby asked as she examined the armor, noticing the suits were slightly older than normal models than what the Sith were currently wearing.

"Won 'em." She said simply. "No one plays Pazak like me." She said simply, grinning as she threw Ruby one of the helmets. "That guy was not happy to let go of 'em I'll tell you that."

"Okay, so… you have a plan to get in then?" Ruby asked as she took the rest of the suit off its display and pulled it on.

"Yup, wouldn't normally try this plan given its got one or two minor holes… but given the sudden time crunch!" Nora said from inside her own suit. "I think we're gonna have to risk it."

…

"This is the second time I've been inside these tunnels today." Ruby said as she trudged along the disused rail line, following Nora with the Sith blaster clasped in her hands as they walked along.

"Really?" Nora asked. "Did you escape down here or something?"

"Yeah, wait Yang didn't tell you that?" Ruby asked as the two moved along the disused tunnels, both of them trying to pretend that the wildlife scampering around wasn't absolutely terrifying.

"Erm… she might have done?" Nora said, shrugging as she stopped at a certain point, Ruby noticed among the scrawls of names and drawings of Twi'lek's thrusting their bums out that Nora's distinctive hammer symbol could be seen scrawled on the wall. "Gotta be honest I was really hungry during her debrief, still know you did your job well." She said with a grin as she freed an explosive from her pack and planted it on the ceiling.

"Anyway, we've got bigger things to worry about right now, assuming I'm remembering this right we should be blowing a hole into one of the equipment stores, from there we break in, find a terminal, get a map of the facility and get the two Jedi out." Nora said. Even she knew this plan was… less than air tight, but hey sometimes you just had to wing it, what was the worst that could happen?

Well a lot could go wrong and Ruby was fully aware of this detail, still she had to do something and this was better than nothing.

"Also avoid shooting once we're inside." Nora said a she finished planting the explosive and jumped down from the wall, grinning as she gestured to the stolen Sith rifle Ruby was holding. "That thing my look like a regular rifle but I gave it a little kick."

"How much of a kick?" Ruby asked, Weapon modding was how she met Nora and the girl had a habit of going completely over the top with her mods.

"Oh I gave it the old Magnahild treatment." Nora said as she flipped the safety of the detonator, a revelation that caused Ruby's eyes to widen as she sprinted for cover behind a support column.

To her surprise the explosion was rather small, simply blowing a two foot square hole in the ceiling above them. Impressive given the last time Ruby had handled one of Nora's explosives it had ended up causing an explosion five times bigger than expected.

"Okay!" Nora declared happily as she began to move a nearby crate, once designed for hauling crystals this box was now to be used as a stepping for them. "That worked well, now let's go find us some Jedi!"

Ruby nodded as she followed the orange haired girl up through the hole, entering a dark room, looking like a warehouse with shelves piled high with standard issue Sith weapons and explosives.

"Ooooohh!" Nora cried, her eyes huge and her mouth drooling as she began pulling explosives off the shelves and stuffing them into her pack. When she caught Ruby looking at her she shrugged and said:

"What? Never know what you're going to need on a mission like this." Nora said as Ruby began to move around, looking for a terminal they could download a map from. Although finding one was proving harder than expected when you couldn't see anything. Even if they could find the light switch they couldn't risk turning it on for fear of letting someone know they were somewhere they shouldn't be.

Eventually Ruby gave up and settled for finding a way into the main facility. Moving amongst the shelves of weapons she felt distinctly uneasy, partially because of the Containers of Blaster fuel on every shelf that seemed to be begging to go up in flames and take her with her. But also it was partially because of the fact that, as silly as it may sound… the weapons here had no soul.

Maybe it was just the way Patch was but chances anyone you met on the street would have a Blaster on them and that the weapon would have been customised to the user. This was the way weapons should be as far as Ruby was concerned, not some gun you took when your shift was ready, but a part of you and something you invested time and effort into. Being amongst so many soulless guns… just made her feel wrong.

Still it didn't take to long for her to find a door, but that lead to a problem:

 _What if there's a guard waiting on the other side?_

Ruby was sure there would be one, possibly two; and if that was the case she didn't want to get into a fight with them, they'd surely raise the alarm, so she needed to check and lure them somewhere hard to fight.

An idea sprang to mind instantly. Determined Ruby walked towards the door controls, flipping the open switch and as fast as she could darting behind a pillar, preying her armor hadn't made to much noise and that they hadn't heard her.

Form behind the door she heard two voices talking:

"Those bleedin' doors!" One of the guards yelled. "Things ain't never worked properly!"

"You know the drill…" The second Guard said, his tone indicating he really didn't want to do it.

Ruby then watched in fascination as he stuck his head between the doors, made a pitiful effort to look around before leaving and smashing his hand into the door control switch, grumbling as he returned to his post.

"Did you see that!" Ruby whispered, looking at Nora as she crept towards her (impressive seeing as her pack was now stuffed full of explosives)

Nora nodded frantically.

"Yeah, he barely looked at us!" Nora responded as Ruby let the gears in her head turn. She could do plans. They had about nine hours before the prisoners got moved so that gave them some time… they couldn't waste too much time but they did have some wiggle room here.

"Okay, I have a plan…" Ruby said as Nora listened carefully.

…

D9341 was not having a good day. The warehouse doors never worked properly but this was just ridiculous, the stupid things had been opening once a minute now, this was nuts!

"Bet you a droids gone mad in there or something." He muttered, looking over at D9342 who nodded.

"Bet yah it is. S'pose I better get the dumb thing." He muttered as he walked through the doors, looking around properly and not seeing one. Then he heard it, something was moving down one of the isles.

"Poxy droids… Come on out fella, someone's due a mem check." He said as he moved down into the isle, expecting to see a rouge T3 unit of some kind waiting for him… instead everything just went black as he fell over backwards.

Ruby just about ran out and caught him before he hit the ground and made a lot of noise.

"Get the cables." She said as Nora (He blaster set to stun) nodded, pulling free some spare power cables and improvising some rope out of them, binding the unconscious trooper.

"Better take his helmet." Nora pointed out as she dragged the knocked out guard towards and empty container. Neither of them knew what it was for but the mass of claw marks made them really hope whatever did that was dead or at the very least not here anymore.

"Yeah." Ruby nodded as she swapped the helmets, taking a second to memorise D9342 before pulling it over her head, watching as Nora pulled her old helmet on the guard, then drew a crude smiley face with a marker she'd found on one of the shelves.

Ruby actively fought against giggling at that as she went outside the doors and stood next to the guard, hoping he wouldn't notice his partner was suddenly quite a few inches shorter than he used to be or that he was holding something he wasn't meant to be.

Holding an EMP was not something Ruby relished doing but she was going to need it, in a few seconds the camera watching them was going to go down and as a result of that and she needed to be quick to get stun the other guard and get his helmet to Nora because a security system was certain to reboot fast.

Ruby counted the tense seconds until her EMP grenade went off, the cameras light dying along with all the lights.

"Oh Great." D9341 groaned as he looked around. "Knew something bigger was going on, knew something was gonna go wrong if they didn't fix the doors but when do they listen to us, am I right?" he asked, looking at his partner, expecting a witty retort… but hang on…

"…2 are you okay?" He asked, suddenly noticing that his partner was shorter than before… and had a blaster pointed at him!

Ruby shot of a stunning blast and caught the guard, dragging him into the storage room as fast as she could. Nora hastily bound him and stole his helmet before the two of them ran outside to the doors, only just getting there in time as the lights kicked back in.

" _D9242 what is your status? We had a power cut in that sector."_ A voice asked over Ruby's helmet radio, trying her best to sound like a man Ruby answered:

"Yeah, we're fine, was inspecting the warehouse and felt woozy, knocked over an EMP." She really hoped that excuse would fly.

"Hmmm… if you're feeling I'll you should report to medical, actually both of you better go, I don't want any sick troopers on duty when the Darth arrives. Go both of you, now!"

Confused but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth the two of them set off down the corridor, passing by two guards who were presumably going to replace them.

"Well, we're in." Ruby said as they began walking around the Sith base, examining everything they came across in hopes of finding a Terminal, but none of them were unguarded and the pair were close to losing faith in their ability to find the two Jedi when…

"You two!" A voice called out, Ruby and Nora span around to look at the imposing form of an approaching Sith General, the two of them Saluted as they looked at the form. "What the hell are you doing? Why aren't you at your posts!?"

"We couldn't find them!" Nora blurted awkwardly, looking around at the General who looked at them, presumably he was scowling but it was hard to tell from his helmeted face. Ruby was also doing this, no way was that going to work…

"…You two are some of the new guys aren't you?" The General said, quickly the two of them nodded. "Of course you are… frigging idiot, employ a bunch of new staff to make the place look better when it's inspected without training them so they walk around looking lost, yeah that reflects well on you. Okay, come here." He said, leading the two of them to ann office of some kind, he went in and came out with a new looking Data pad. "Map of the base is on that, sorry I only have one but with all you newbies coming through we don't have enough to go around. Anyway once you've found your post memorise it and then delete the map file, otherwise anyone could find their way around here."

"We will, thank you sir!" Ruby said, saluting as the General walked off before the two broke into massive grins.

"Right, let's see where we have to go to find those two…"

…

Blake Belladonna decided to take a break from staring up at the ceiling to look over at her Fellow Padawan. Being confined to a cramped dingy cell with only a few slits of light to see by was not going to make anyone happy, but Weiss was a different story.

Unlike her, Weiss was used to the high life; the only evidence that she had been through any hardships in her life was the small scar above her left eye (Although it had done little to make the ice blue iris' look any less cold) And even when she'd been confined to one room it had either been in a stately home or in the jedi temple, which at least she had to herself; Blake would have to admit she did enjoy annoying Weiss. Being locked in a room smaller than her En suite with someone deliberately annoying her was not a recipe for a happy Girl.

"I still say we should try my plan." She snapped, scowling over at Blake as she rolled her eyes.

"Weiss the sick prisoner routine will never work." Blake said calmly as she stretched out, doing her best to get comfortable on the narrow metal cot she had for sleeping on.

"Well it's better than your wonderful plan. What was it again? Sit around and do nothing and just hope someone gets us out!?" Weiss cried.

"That's what the Force is telling me to do." Blake said, knowing that something was going to happen soon, the Force had always been good to her like that… even if she hadn't been the best at following it's warnings sometimes.

The two sat their for a second before Weiss said:

"I still can't believe you didn't tell me you were a Faunus!"

Blake Scowled, nestled in her mess of black hair were a pair of Black Cat ears, a sign that Blake was not a completely normal human, no one knew for sure where they came from but they had a history of being especially force sensitive along with possessing better senses than an average human. Why logic would say you would want these people on your side… some of the outer rim planets didn't think that way.

Apparently Weiss was in the same boat them.

"You didn't ask." Blake eventually said.

Weiss began to angry say something… but that was before something happened that shock the pair.

All Jedi have a connection to the force, it flows through them and acts as a guide for them, but suddenly it was gone, no advice, no anything.

Both Padawans were on edge as soon as this happened, looking at the door as they heard the guard stationed outside call out:

"Hey! What do you think your doin…"

Two loud pulses were heard as two bodies fell to the ground with a clatter of armor before the cell opened.

"Who are you!" Weiss cried, putting her fists up at the two figures who stood in the doorway; as if she thought her dainty hands would do anything against two armored troopers.

Blake however took a second to look at the two new visitors. They weren't Sith; she was sure of that much. While she couldn't sense anything about them they just didn't hold themselves in the right way (Also Sith tend not to stun their fellow troopers) Also they were short and not bulky enough to have undergone the training Sith troopers went through. Also their armor, the helmets didn't quite match with the rest of their suits, given the heavy level of wear on each part it was hard to tell but Blake was sure the Armor didn't quite match the current Sith loadout.

With all this information in mind Blake decided to simply comment on them:

"Little short for a Sith aren't you?"

"Huh?" The shorter of the two asked as she dragged one of the knocked out troopers into the cell.

"The uniform." The taller (admittedly not by much) of the two explained, before pulling her helmet visor up.

She was young, younger than Blake had expected; still in her teens the girl sported long brown hair and most stunningly, Silver eyes that shone out as the girl said:

"My Names Ruby Rose, She's Nora, we're here to rescue you!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: You dolts are braver than I thought

"You?" The white haired Padawan asked, looking up at her two 'Savours' both the over eager cheeriness in the silver eyed one and the rather undignified manor the second was dragging the two Sith troopers in.

"Erm, well yeah." Ruby muttered, looking around awkwardly. "I mean, we're breaking you out aren't we?"

"Please, as if I couldn't have figured a way out of this ourselves… OW!" The white haired padawan cried, her haughty boasting getting interrupted as the dark haired girl slapped her around the back of the head.

"Well I know what their problem is." Nora said simply, smiling as she dumped the second guard into the cell. Looking at Ruby as she began to mess around with the straps on the guards armor.

"You do?" The white haired girl said, her eyebrow raised as she looked at the grinning Nora as she freed the chest plate off of the gaurds.

"Yeah, you're unhappy because we haven't gotten you out yet." She said, throwing the girl the armor piece. "But don't worry, we've got a plan for that!"

"Care to explain?" The black haired girl said, her eyebrow raised as she looked up at Nora.

"Sure, the first step involves stripping these two knocked out men naked!" Nora said with her face split in a massive grin as the two Jedi looked at her confused.

…

"This plan is stupid." The white haired girl scowled from behind her visor, looking at the two idiots she was trusting for some reason far beyond her comprehension.

"Because yours was so much better." Blake smirked, actually feeling at home in the armor. Probably because she didn't look ludicrously short compared to every other Sith. Her Companions were suffering the exact opposite, all of them looking too short, Weiss in particular was very noticeable… too noticeable.

"Someone is going to notice I'm too short." Weiss pointed out.

Ruby fought the urge to groan, the white haired girls complaining was getting annoying.

"I told you, people will only notice you if you draw attention to yourself, just keep walking like you're meant to be here, and no one will notice you." Ruby explained, again.

"Excuse me, I know how to sneak around." The white haired girl snapped as her armor clanked around nosily.

"Sure, that's why we didn't get caught within a day of landing on this moon." The black haired girl pointed out, wishing she could see the flustered look on Weiss' face as she spluttered.

"Look we need to cooperate otherwise this break out is never going to work." Ruby said, looking at Weiss who turned away and scoffed.

"Please, now we're out of that cell we can handle ourselves." The white haired girl said, turning away like she intended to walk off somewhere before Blake grabbed her shoulder.

"Or we could stay with the two people who have helped us so far and have knowledge of the local environment and might speed up our mission." The black haired girl said, watching as Weiss stood their fuming before eventually stamping the ground in annoyance.

"Fine!" She scowled, looking at her two rescuers, stomping towards them before taking a deep breath and saying: "I'm Weiss and I suppose…" She took a quick look over at the Black haired gril who nodded, moving her left hand in a small circle, signalling Weiss to keep talking: "…it would be in our best interest to keep working together, at least for now!"

"Well it'll do…" Nora muttered, looking over at Ruby who smiled before turning to look at the black haired girl: "…And who are you?"

"Blake." She said calmly as the four of them stepped out of the detention block. In theory the next step of the plan was simple, they just walked through the complex without arising suspicion (assuming their height never got called out) and escape the way they came in, IE: through a hole in the floor in the Warehouse.

That was the plan anyway, the chances of it going that smoothly were… well it was unlikely. Still the rest of this break in had worked out; so if they were lucky and nothing else came up…

"We need to retrieve our gear." Weiss said, looking over at Ruby who stopped and tilted her head as she looked at her.

"We have official documents that must be delivered to our contact if we are to convince him to aid in our cause, also Blake and Myself my retrieve our sabers otherwise we will be defenceless while we explore this rock.

"It's called Patch." Ruby scowled, not taking kindly to her home being slagged off; even if she did have a point. "And sure, it's not far to the Contraband store…"

Ruby stopped talking then, mostly because any noise she made would have been drowned out by the approaching shuttle. A unique craft by the looks of it, long and black with vivid red markings painted in an intricate pattern along the underside of the craft. She looked up, her silver eyes focusing on the impressive seven engine set up that pushed the craft along, its two side wings stretching across the sky as they began to raise up as the ship slowed down. Presumably aiming to land on the landing pad that Ruby's map indicated wasn't to far from here.

"Wow, that ship looks expensive." Nora commented, looking impressed at the ship as it went to land.

"It looks like a modified Schnee 140." Weiss commented. "Impressive seeing as the only Prototype was stolen months ago."

"Blake…?" Ruby asked, looking over at the dark haired girl, she was frozen to the ground, looking up at the ship in terror.

"No…" Blake said, the word was small and tiny, almost like it was trying not to be noticed. "…not him…"

"Nora get her out of here." Ruby said, her brain thinking fast, whoever that shuttle belonged to was enough to spook a jedi, they needed to get her out of here as fast as possible. "Give Weiss your gun, Me and Her will go get their stuff and hide out at my place."

"What!?" Weiss cried indignantly. "Who said you get to make the plan! That shuttle probably belongs to a Sith lord! You really think you can deal with it without jedi back up? You really are a dolt."

"Firstly Ice queen." Ruby snapped as she gestured frantically at Nora. "I got us this far with my plan. Secondly if it's a Sith lord then fewer targets for him to find has got to be a good thing. Thirdly I don't intend to encounter the Sith lord if I can help it, and part of my plan is to move fast. Lastly if this goes wrong it's better to only have some of us get captured, not all of us."

"Wait!" Blake cried, the two girls skidding to a halt to turn and look at her. "The Sith in charge of that ship… look be careful, he's dangerous and you must not fight him, you understand?"

The words mostly seemed to be directed at Weiss, who froze, as if trying to process her fellow Padawans words, it wasn't possible she was serious. However, her tone and body language said she was, so Weiss sent out a small nod in response.

Ruby then grabbed Weiss and walked off as Blake and Nora headed for the warehouse, Nora muttering under her breath:

"At this rate the Sith won't have to kill them."

Blake had a nasty feeling Nora might be right.

…

"Do you even know where you're going?" Weiss snapped, looking at Ruby who rolled her eyes under her helmet while raising her Datapad.

"I've got a map in here." She explained as they trudged along.

"Well then give it here!" Weiss demanded, stopping and holding her arm out.

Ruby stared at her in confusion.

"Give it here!" Weiss snapped.

"Why?" Ruby asked, her head tilted to the side as she firmly kept both her hands on the pad.

"I'm the Jedi, Therefor I outrank you, ergo I should be leading this mission." She said simply, beckoning with her hand for Ruby to hand over the pad.

"What? No, look just follow me." Ruby said, turning around and walking away without handing over the tablet. Did this girl know who she was talking to?

"Give me the tablet, I'm clearly better suited to leading this mission, now hand over the Data Pad!" Weiss yelled, stamping her foot in anger. The bratty response coming from the short girl in sith armor that didn't fit right was almost funny, like a kid playing dress up throwing a fit. Except a kid wouldn't be holding a modified blaster.

The thing was Weiss had also clenched her fist when she did the stamp, or at least gone to, fists are a hard shape to form when you're gripping a blaster… and Weiss, inexperienced with a blaster had had her finger on the trigger, the result was her tantrum had caused the gun to fire.

Nora was not kidding when she said she amped the guns power up, The blast shot off with a force normally associated with Bowcasters, blasting right through the reinforced floor and making a hell of a lot of noise.

Soon feet were crashing down the hallway as three troopers burst onto the scene, guns raised as the squads leader yelled out:

"What in Blazes happened here!?"

Ruby instantly noticed two things. One Weiss was doing a very bad job of explaining herself, stammering and stuttering as she looked down the barrel of four guns belonging to Sith troopers with no saber and Secondly all the Troopers looked on edge, however none of them were paying her any attention… Maybe she could do this.

"Well!?" She yelled, marching forwards until she was right in Weiss' face.

"I, what!?" Weiss stammered.

 _Still panicking, good that's how a trooper would react in this scenario._

"Don't you what me you steaming heap or Rancor dung!" Ruby roared, hoping everyone else would be as freaked out by this as Weiss was. "What is the first thing the academy told you about weapon safety!?"

Ruby gave Weiss about a second to form an answer before she started yelling at her again.

"Never walk around with your finger on the trigger or the safety off! By the Darkside what is wrong with you!?" Ruby the grabbed Weiss roughly and tore the gun out of her hands, throwing it to one of the troopers watching Ruby yell at Weiss. "Honestly! Give an untrained Moron a faulty Blaster, get that thing dismantled immediately while I take this **IDIOT!** To Processing."

Ruby's Plan almost worked, The Trooper she'd thrown the gun to walked off with it (Nora was not going to be happy about losing one of her weapons but Ruby figured if she got her a Sith Blaster to replace it she wouldn't care) however, the others decided to follow her take Weiss off.

"Ouch, bad luck dude." One of the Troopers said, leaning over at Weiss who scowled beneath her helmet. This charade was humiliating enough without her having to keep it up.

"Yeah, still be glad it was only her who found you, if it had been that Sith Master…" The troopers all shuddered.

"Scariest thing I've ever encountered." The other trooper said solemnly.

"Was he powerful?" Weiss asked, Blake had been vague about the details when she was talking about him, any information she could get would prove helpful.

"Let me put it this way." The second Trooper responded, hand on his chin as he spoke. "He strangled Smith to death for stepping on his robes, didn't even touch him, I'd heard of force choking before but seeing it happen…"

"If he saw what you just did I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't just blast you with lightning." The first Trooper said coolly, her voice having an edge of indifference that most people wouldn't have while talking about potential murder.

"He can do that!?" Weiss panicked, her eyes wide. Force Lightning was a sign of power far beyond what her or Blake could fight, beyond any Padawan.

"He had it crackling around his fingers after he choked Smith." The third Trooper explained.

"Yeah, hate to see what he would do if those Jedi escaped." The first joked… before the Alarm went off.

"And now I might just get to see it!" One of the Troopers yelled, just as the bases speakers began to blare out:

"High Alert! The Jedi have escaped! Everyone on base bring them back now!" The speaker called out, before he could be heard saying: "Master Adam, I'm so sorry, I guarantee you we will find them and bring them in."

The Speaker cut out and the group looked at each other. The Sith wondering what the hell they should be doing to try and find the Jedi while Ruby and Weiss tried to figure out how to throw them off and retrieve her gear without being detected as one of the Jedi they were supposed to be looking for.

Ruby racked her brain, only, to her surprise; to have Weiss come up with a plan.

"They can't have gotten out to long ago, they must be aiming to retrieve their gear!" She blurted, they all turned to look at her in confusion. "The Jedi! If we can get to where their gears being held before they can we can corner them there!"

"That's… a good idea." The second trooper muttered, excitement evident in her voice as she spoke. "Yeah, we can do this!" She declared.

"I took their stuff to the Contraband store!" The Third cried. "I know exactly where to go!"

"Lead the way then!" Ruby cried as the five of them set off, looking at Weiss and saying: "Their may well be hope for this poodoo yet!"

"I knew this day was our day, I just knew it!" The second trooper said, her voice brimming with triumph as they entered the store, running to the locker the Third trooper had put the gear in, honestly it was almost a shame when Ruby had to stun them from behind while they looked at the stuff, killing their moment almost seemed wrong…

Almost.

"I'll admit, that plan worked out better than I expected." Weiss said, her voice neutral as she could make it as she forced the white case containing her saber open.

"Yeah, to be honest I'm amazed you thought up that plan." Ruby said as she grabbed the pack that say at the bottom of the locker, opened it and began shoving its contents into the pack. "How did you know those three would fall for that plan?"

"Before I was a Jedi I met a lot of power hungry cretins. I spot them easily and they nearly always fall for similar tricks, it was easy to lead them out here." She explained in a tone that indicated she was very proud of herself. Which fair enough, she had found what they were looking for.

"Yeah, Wasn't sure you had it in you to improvise." Ruby said, looking at Weiss with a smug grin on her face. Maybe it was the way she said it, maybe it was force powers but Weiss picked up on it.

"Did you have to yell at me?" She snapped irritably.

"They're Sith." Ruby said, nodding to the knocked out troopers as she stuffed a data pad into the pack. "Do you think they coddle the screw ups? Because they don't."

"I know that!" Weiss snapped, suddenly feeling guilty, as much as she didn't want to admit it this girl was the only reason she didn't have a blaster hole through her head and not repaying her debts was one of the many things her family was known for.

Well, not if she had anything to say about it.

"And thank you." She muttered, causing Ruby to look up in surprise. "I was panicking and you probably saved my life, I know I'm… difficult to work with, but… it's in our best interest to cooperate while we get out of here." She then extended her hand. "Truce?" She asked tentatively.

"Truce!" Ruby Grinned, taking her hand and shaking it vigorously. "Now give me Blakes Saber and lets get out of here."

Weiss opened the container, extracting two sabers and throwing them to Ruby. When she caught them Ruby took a second to look over the weapons. Maybe she was crazy but she couldn't help it, every Jedi lightsaber was hand crafted, she had to see what these were like.

Blake apparently used two sabers with two drastically different hilts with one plugged into the other when they were shut down, with the two emitters joined together. However, the main difference came from one of the hilts having what looked like a Blaster built into it, weird; Ruby had heard that most Jedi didn't use guns.

 _Maybe this girls just smarter than most?_

The other thing Ruby got from the sabers (Which were apparently called Gambol Shroud if the name scratched into the hilt was anything to go by) was… weird. Something about them, she thought she heard words coming from them. Not loud of clear, but she was sure that she could pick out certain words, 'Do better' and 'keep it hidden' seemed to be common among the mess.

"Weird." She muttered as she stuffed the saber into the pack and slung it over her armored shoulder. "Right, let's go."

Weiss nodded as she fixed her saber to the belt on her armor. Ruby didn't have time to notice much other than the emitter was reinforced with four structures, each ending with a small point.

"Isn't the saber going to draw attention?" Ruby asked as she pulled the pack over her back.

"Both of us are going to stand out." Weiss pointed out. "However, with everyone running around we should be able to run to your exit, hopefully no one will look to hard at us."

"Good point." Ruby nodded. "Quick warning though, I run really fast when I have to."

"I think you'll find I can keep up." Weiss said as the two sprinted out of the door onto the compound.

…

Weiss had been right, the compound was hectic and two troopers running around blended right in, hell even the extra gear the pair was carrying didn't look that out of place given nearly every trooper had grabbed something extra. All in all escape was looking like a certainty for the two girls.

So obviously something went wrong. No one understands quite how the universe work, even the great Jedi Master Ozpin couldn't discern much about how the universe worked or why it liked messing with people's lives at the worst possible time, indeed he was of the mindset that since the only strategy of surviving the universe was to roll with whatever it sent your way and hope it worked out.

This was the situation Ruby found herself in, running for the exit hole Nora had created the two intended to run across a storage bay, used for wildlife storage whenever the Sith scientists wanted to study something. Unfortunately as soon as Ruby (Who was leading the charge to the exit) crossed the threshold into the containment area the universe decided to pounce on her.

A group of Troopers sprinted out as fat as they could (one of whom barrelled into Weiss and sent her clattering to the floor, Ruby had been lucky, all shed's lost was her blaster when someone crashed into her and sent it flying from her hand) barely noticing Ruby as they screamed: "The things lose!"

One of the Troopers (presumably smarter than the rest) ran over to the door controls and frantically pulled the lever to call down the Blast doors.

Weiss was dazed as she forced herself to her feet, looking around in confusing as she approached the door, calling out:

"Ruby are you there!"

Which she was, unfortunately Ruby was not in a good position to answer, actually she was rather hoping the Black furred, bone armored monster hadn't seen her as it slowly moved towards her, it's foul breath wafting towards Ruby and making her feel sick as she despratley reached for her blaster, only to realise she didn't have it. She needed something quick, that thing was getting nearer and she was getting far to close a look at its teeth.

…

"Ruby?" Weiss called, panic rising as she heard a roar bellow from behind the blast door as she heard Ruby cry out. What had happened, was she okay, what had got her and how was she going to get out of this mess!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Creatures of Darkness

Ruby was panicking, that creature was getting nearer, and she didn't have her gun, the damn thing had been knocked from her hand, she looked around, did she have anything, she had seconds and now she looked harder she could see another two creatures behind her, maybe there was something in the pack?

Ruby felt around in it, glad she had only slung it over one shoulder she reached around, not finding what she was looking for as the creature jumped.

Maybe it was the heat of the moment that aloud Ruby to be able to grasp the weapon she was looking for, flicking the power switch on the blaster free end of Gambol Shroud just in time to swing it through the beast.

The Brilliant purple blade burnt through the creature, the blade cleaving the beast in half as it fell to the ground.

Panting heavily Ruby disengaged the blade, something about it just felt wrong. Stupid as it sounded Ruby was sure the blade trusted no one but its master, and she definitely wasn't her.

Still, Ruby could breath easier now, she'd dealt with the monster and should be fine from now on…

"Grrrrrrrrrr"

Assuming she could deal with the rest of the monsters. The only advantage Ruby had was that this time she had more than a few seconds to get prepared for the fight.

She took one of the few seconds she had to carefully study the creatures in depth. All of them were massive, easily standing at least seven feet tall, broad shouldered and covered in shaggy black fur. The most striking feature however was the bone armor growing out of the creature's body, covered in jagged red markings, their Yellow eyes burning as they ran at Ruby.

The silver eyed girl begged the saber in her hand to aid her, it did not like her, at all. But she had to try. She shifted her stance slightly as the beast ran at her, leaping into the air as it went to swing it's massive muscle bound arm Ruby only just managed to lunge forward with Gambol shroud in time. The Saber brunt through the beast with ease, the creature looked down at her before the light left its eyes.

Then the really weird thing happened, the creature didn't just lay down dead as Ruby turned the saber on her other opponent; The two creatures she'd killed were dissolving into black smoke.

"The hell?" She muttered before she was suddenly forced to focus on the last creature. She figured it would be easy, swing the lightsaber at the creature and it would kill it with one stroke.

Well, that was the plan, however as the saber swung the beast moved its arm suddenly, pinning the blade between its bone armor, the saber wasn't cutting it.

She looked up. Her eyes wide behind the helmet as the creature swung at her with its tree trunk like arms, crashing into her and sending her flying across the room she cried out in pain as she made contact with the wall of the pen, clutching her injured arm as the half of Gambol Shroud she'd been using was lost, getting flung from her hand and clattering off to the side.

…

"AARRRGGGHHH!"

Weiss' eye went wide, that was Ruby, whatever was in there must have been bad. She needed to get her out, but the door was locked, she could in theory cut through the reinforced entrance but it might take to long…

 _Well I better get to it now then._

Weiss pulled Myrtenaster to her hand, shocked that it came so easily, her connection to the force had felt numb ever since the break out, possibly a result of the approaching Sith. But now the connection was back and she was ready to use it.

Weiss eyed the door, like many Sith institutes it was a modular system brought from the Schnee company. Now the Schnee family prided itself on its high quality products, however Weiss was rather knowledgeable about them (She would have been running the company if she hadn't turned out to be Force sensitive) and she knew this particular unit (the T90 Schnee heavy Siege Blast Door) had a minor flaw the public obviously wasn't told about; the motors had a slight programming bug, in the event of detecting high heat their default setting would be to open. This was mostly because of fire defence and allowing staff to escape. However the problem came in with the sensor, once the reinforced blast doors was lowered all the heat was trapped inside would work its way up to the sensor. Obviously not enough to set it off, however, introduce another source of heat (Say, thrusting a Lightsaber between the doors) and the doors would slide open easily.

Weiss aloud herself a smile as she stepped through the door, but it quickly vanished the second she could see that… thing. Weiss had never felt anything like this creature, every living thing had some connection to the force and Jedi were trained to recognise certain tells, the dark side was not pleasant to detect but it had saved a great many lives by giving Jedi early warnings. This thing though… Weiss was shaken to her core. The rage billowing from the creature was… too much.

Then she saw something that made her leap into action, Ruby was lying slumped against the wall of the pen, her chest torn apart and bleeding badly. Weiss did not have time, she had to move fast.

In an instant she had raised Myrtenaster and lunged at the creature, using the force to propel herself faster she swung at the creature, only to be shocked when her blade bounced off of the creature heavily armored torso.

Weiss jumped back, happy to have the beasts attention as it turned to look at her, its many teeth bared as it looked at her.

Weiss looked at it, seeing it's problem, its chest was tough but other areas did not have the armored quality of its torso. The thing charged at her on all fours, tearing the ground apart as it charged at her, getting ready to destroy her. She would not give it the opportunity.

As the beast reached her Weiss side stepped it, using force speed to neatly dodge the attack and swing her saber up, not aiming for the torso. It gave her great pleasure when the strategy worked, Mytenaster had cleanly severed the creatures arm. It howled in pain and Weiss could feel the rage emanating from the beast as it flailed around, struggling to its feet now it's balance was different.

Weiss was not going to let it do that, fast as lightning she leapt in, skidding around the beast to slash its legs off, finishing the time off by cleaving the other arm off as the beast fell to the ground, it writhed around so it could look at her, screaming in rage at her.

Opening its mouth had been a mistake, it's head and jaw had both been heavily armored, the mouth by comparison was far more vulnerable to Weiss' blade.

The second the creature was dead Weiss ran over to the passed out Ruby. She was in a bad way, her torso was a mess and her armor had been stained red.

Weiss could tell Ruby was out cold, she held out her arms and called out with the force, letting the energy flow through her, trying her hardest to save the girl. Healing had always been a problem for her, her Sister could do it without a second thought; however, Weiss had always struggled with it. The Force didn't flow from her easily. It stayed stuck to her, but she had to save this girl! She had helped her and she repaid her debts! She wasn't like them! She would not fail like this!

"Weiss…?" Ruby asked, looking up at the girl who blinked in surprise. Ruby was waking up, her chest wasn't fully healed yet but it was defiantly better than it was, at the very least she wasn't going to bleed out here in the creature pen. A scar might remain but that was far better than bleeding out and dyeing. She allowed a small smile to spread across her face as Ruby regained consciousness.

"Stay still Dolt!" Weiss snapped, the smile gone as she helped Ruby to her feet. "I used up more of my Force than I thought, I can't heal you again if you get hurt."

Ruby nodded as she forced herself to clamber to her feet, leaning against the wall until Weiss took her arm and pulled it over her shoulder.

"Don't be stupid, you aren't going anywhere like that." She said as she retrieved the pack off of the ground containing the rest of their gear, putting her saber and the fallen Gambol Shroud into the pack before helping Ruby walk slowly out of the room.

The injury might have been gone but the pain wasn't, it was a side effect of weak healing ability, she might have fixed the damage to her actual body but her nerves were still crying out because they didn't realise the damage was gone. It would go away soon but for now Ruby was dealing with her body of being in complete agony.

"Now come on, we need to get out of here." Weiss said as she supported Ruby, the two staggering out of the creature pen. As soon as they were in the corridor and both of them had confirmed no Troopers were around, letting Ruby ask the very first question that had come to her ever since she first laid eyes upon the thing.

"What was that?" She asked, looking at Weiss as the pair staggered down the hallway.

"I have no idea." Weiss said, trying to sound like she wasn't shaken to her core about the whole situation. "I can't say I've ever seen anything like that thing before"

"Weird…" Ruby muttered as they staggered along. "They felt so… Odd, like they just wanted to hurt me… or something… I don't know how to describe it."

"That was the Dark side of the Force." Weiss explained. "It's what the Sith draw their power from."

"Those were Sith?" Ruby asked in confusion, she'd heard they weren't the best looking but she didn't realise they were that bad…

"No off course not!" Weiss snapped irritably. "But I would be willing to bet they were made by a Sith, and a powerful one at that if they were capable of making a creature out of the Force."

"That's possible?" Ruby muttered. "I thought you used the Force to move objects around."

"Oh my…. Ruby, do yourself a favour and don't pretend to know anything about the Force, you have no training and you're clearly ignorant." Weiss said dully as they walked around the corner.

"Well excuse me princess." Ruby snapped darkly as they walked along.

Weiss wanted to snap back but she decided against it, it wasn't going to do anything and she'd wasted enough time bickering with the girl, she just wanted to keep walking and get the hell out of this base. So they did, for about five minutes they headed towards the warehouse in silence, until…

"You two!"

Wondering how many times they were going to get caught on their way out of this base Ruby and Weiss turned around to look at the speaker…

He was a tall man, easily taller than the pair of them. Wearing long black robes covering his entire body, his face hidden by both his black hood and the only not black part of his outfit, the White mask he wore that covered both of his eyes, letting four strips of red light to emit from the holes. This splash of colour was the only thing on him that wasn't dark and it didn't make him easy to be around.

Both Ruby and Weiss nervously eyed the Lightsaber attached to his belt.

"Well, why aren't you looking for the Jedi!?" He asked, his anger actually shattering the lights around him. Although weirdly Weiss wasn't feeling anything as he approached despite how big his aura must have been. Especially given the fact lights behind them had been a part of the rage explosion.

That being said confronting a Sith Lord who was clearly very powerful in a dark corridor lit only by the light emanating from the four eye holes on his mask was not a pleasant experience either of them wanted to be a part off.

"We, erm…" Weiss muttered, wondering if the Sith was just toying with her given he should have easily detected her connection to the force, Both sides resonated with each other and you could tell easily. Still, hopefully whatever was preventing her from detecting him was working both ways around.

"We were heading to the store room." Ruby butted in, clearly out of breath and struggling to get the words out.

"And why pray tell do you think the Jedi would be in there?" The Sith asked, pulling the saber that hung at his belt to his hand. It wasn't activated yet but you didn't need to be Force sensitive to tell he was very close to activating it.

"Sir retrieving a med pack would be quicker than wasting the medical department's time, allowing us to get back to the hunt quicker." Ruby blurted, also aware of how close the Sith was to activating his saber.

The Sith took a few seconds to mull these words over. Ruby really wished she could have seen his eyes, they were useful when it came to reading people, a skill she particularly missed when the subject in question was quite likely to strike them down with their Lightsaber.

After the agonising seconds was gone he returned his Saber to his belt.

"And there was me thinking everyone on this base was a poorly trained moron." He muttered darkly as he looked at the two, gesturing with his hands to send them off. "Get going while I go explain my displeasure to the man who runs this base."

Ruby nodded weakly while Weiss saluted as the Sith walked off.

"That was far too close!" Weiss gasped as they moved along.

"Yeah, I don't want to know how he did that thing with the lights." Ruby said as they walked onwards, noticing a couple of troopers suffering from nasty blaster wounds slumped against the wall. Ruby couldn't be sure but she suspected Nora had been involved given it had burnt straight through the armor and a large part of the wall behind them.

"That was the Dark side of the Force." Weiss explained.

"I said I didn't want to know…" Ruby muttered while Weiss merrily ignored her and kept on talking.

"…It's highly unstable, damage like that isn't uncommon and it's the main reason we Jedi steer clear of it."

"Keep your voice down!" Ruby hissed. "We're trying to keep that bit a secret, we don't want to go shouting all over the place!"

" **RUBY ROSE!"** A familiar voice bellowed down the halls, causing Ruby to freeze up.

Slowly the Silver eyed girl turned around and gulped. The shouter may have been wearing a badly fitting set of Sith armor but it was evident who it was.

"Hey Sis…" Ruby muttered, looking awkwardly, trying to avoid looking at her furious sister.

"What the hell were you thinking!" Yang yelled, storming up the hall and shaking her Sister violently. "Breaking into a Sith base to rescue a Couple of Padawans!? Why would you do that without help!"

"Hey I had Nora on my side!" Ruby shot back, a little annoyed, it wasn't like she'd just walked up to the front door and asked to be let in.

"Yeah, you had Nora on your side! You know how I knew that!?" Yang cried.

"Because she just told you?" Weiss asked, looking at the new person who was apparently her saviors Sister.

"Shut it!" Yang snapped, rounding on Weiss before returning her attention to Ruby. "Hey do you want to know why I know about you having Nora on my side!?"

"How…?" Ruby asked, suddenly knowing how a Swap boar felt when it had the twin lights of a speeder pointing right at it.

"Because she showed up at my door on the one night when I finally convinced Melanie and Miltia into bed at the same time to drop off a Jedi while mentioning my little Sister was still in there!" Yang bellowed.

"That was ages ago, what took you so long to get here if you were so worried?" Ruby yelled back angrily.

"Because dear Sister the twins were in the room and heard everything! I had to get them in such a state that they wouldn't remember anything!" Yang yelled.

"How did you…" Ruby began to ask before Weiss stamped her foot in anger.

" **Excuse me you two! But could we maybe focus on getting out of this base and have this sibling spat later!?"** Honestly, the way these two were yelling at each other, she never had this problem with Winter.

The two sisters stopped yelling, realizing this wasn't the best place to be having this argument the three of them bolted for the exit.

…

"Sir, Please let me explain… _ACK!_ " The base Overseer tried to force out before he was ripped out of his chair and dragged across the floor before being slammed into the opposing wall.

Darth Taurus was not happy, in fact he was brimming with so much rage and this idiot was the perfect target for it. He lifted him unto the air, choaking the life out of him.

"Give me one good reason why I should let you continue to waste the air on this moon!" Adam Growled, dragging the general across the floor and ramming him into a bank of computer consoles.

"Please, my Lord!" The Overseer begged as he gripped at his throat in vain, as if he thought he could remove the invisible hands tightening around it. "We can still catch them!"

"No, you can't." Taurus hissed as he pulled the saber free from his belt and ignited the blade. "At this point I have more trust in your staff than I have in you, so please, tell me; why should I not end you now?"

Before he could answer the door burst open, three troopers sprinted in, all of them out of breath with their hands on their knees as their leader began to speak.

"Sir, the Jedi retrieved their Weapons!" The leader gasped as she stood up properly to observe the situation, seemingly unphased by her superior officer being strangled to death in front of her.

"How do you know?" Taurus asked as he pointed his saber at the Troppers, letting the base Overseer drop to the floor, given a few more minutes to live.

"They were disguised as Sith Troopers sir." The leader said, taking a careful step back, just enough that she wasn't within the reach of the Darth's Lightsaber.

"Honestly Trooper." The Overseer sneered. "How could you fall for such a cheap trick?"

"Because Sir…" The only man in the group said (as he finally stopped panting for breath) and rose to his feet (Darth Taurus noticing the slight whirring noise generated from the action) "…Someone hired a hole bunch of new troopers to appear better than he was and as such we don't recognise anyone these days."

"Really?" Darth Taurus said, turning to the Overseer who's eyes went wide with feet.

"S, sir… I can explain…"

He didn't get a chance, he was pulled across the room and met the Darth's Lightsaber, his body split in two as it fell to the ground and skidded along the ground. The Darth then walked towards the Intercom.

"Could we please have something competent come to the Overseers office? There's a vacancy that needs filling." He said, walking out of the room, only stopping to tell the troopers to get rid of the body.

"You know, I don't think he was happy with how this guy did his job." The Man in the group said as he hauled the top half of the body down the hall, planning to drop it with the rest of the bodys.

"You think Mercury?" The younger of the two girls in the squad snapped irritably.

"Whoa! Emerald when did you lose your sense of fun." Mercury asked, watching as the two girls dragged the former overseers legs away.

"Mercury you will shut up." Emerald said, waving her hand. It had never worked on him before but if she was really lucky…

"You know that trick doesn't work on me." Mercury responded as they entered the courtyard where the other bodys were being dumped, it wasn't a very high count but apparently one squad had got into a fight with the Jedi and it had not ended well for them.

"Shame, it works on all the other trash I meet." Emerald said before their leader had heard enough.

"Both of you be quite."

"Yes Cinder." Both of them blurted.

"Good." She said as she dropped the legs unceremoniously before turning to walk off.

"You two stay here." She said, turning to look at the pair behind her. "I want to have another look at it and I do not want to deal with you two sniping at each other."

She then walked off, neither Emerald or Mercury following, Cinder Fall might be just a trooper but she was higher ranked than them and you were a fool if you treated her as such, ever since she found that artefact she'd done so many things neither of them really wanted to see again.

"Think this is going to end well?" Mercury asked, turning to look at Emerald who looked at the ground before eventually saying.

"No, no I don't."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Ignorant Brat

Ruby and Yang did talk much on the way back and as far as Weiss was concerned that was the only good thing about the trip. Weiss knew that as a Jedi she would be forced to do things that were unpleasant, making hard decisions and tough choices and performing unpleasant acts that few were prepared to do. While it was probably true that her current activity fell into that description, somehow traveling through tunnels filled with animal feces and rotting carcases was not what she imagined. The worst thing was she had ways off getting around this, she could use the force to purify the air for her and run through the tunnel system… Normally. Something was just wrong with her current predicament, The Force just wasn't coming to her; Even given the immense amount of energy it would take for her to heal a major injury she should have been able to feel something… but, no. She couldn't feel or do a thing… it made her feel… helpless.

Ruby couldn't say she was feeling much better than Weiss. The tunnel didn't bother her that much (she'd been through it enough times that the smell was barely noticeable) but frankly she'd much rather have the foul smell than deal with her Sister right now. (You didn't need to be all that bright to recognise that Yang was furious right now)

So they walked, Yang wanted to scream at her little sister until the sun came up, but she didn't have time for that and it was never a wise move to start shouting at each other because of a break out attempt before you reached some form of safety.

Still that came all to quickly for Ruby's taste as they approached her home, she knew she was going to face Yangs furry and the white haired Padawan wasn't helping.

"Please tell me you don't expect me to hide out in this dump." She scowled, looking at the three weather stained, rusted doors that lead to the sisters home. "This place looks like it's going to fall apart soon."

Yang growled as she punched in the unlock code to the doors, only to let out a cry of frustration as the door stopped moving while it was half open.

"Perfect, a safe house whos door doesn't work." Weiss scowled.

"Hey the door still works." Ruby pointed out, having pulled her helmet off and chucking it under the door before she ducked down low and crawled through the door, standing up and grinning broadly, well until her head hit the door and her skull let out quite a large clang!

"…I'm okay…" Ruby moaned as she rubbed the large lump currently building on her head.

"Urgh, honestly I'm surrounded by idiots…" Weiss groaned… until Yang gave her a hard shove and sent her clattering into the mud.

"Be nice to her, if I had found out about you I wouldn't have bothered going to rescue you; So find some gratitude." Yang snapped before dropping down and crawling under, waiting until she was in the room to remove her helmet.

Weiss did follow, though she hoped no one needed the armor after this because the wet mud was burning though the fabric of the uniform.

"Urgh…" She groaned as she looked down at the red marks that could be seen on her hands were the fabric had melted away.

"Yeah I would get in the detoxer before you eat anything." Ruby said, having recovered from her head injury and examining the red marks.

"Or before the burning kicks in." Nora said, sprawled out across Ruby's bed. (it was the one that had the pillow that night) "Trust me the burning hurts."

"What an astute observation." Weiss said, rolling her eyes as she walked towards the detox booth, pulling the armor off as she walked before stepping in and starting the showering process.

"Well she seems nice" Nora said, her voice having lost its normal bubbly bounce as she scowled at the white haired Padawan.

"That's fairly normal for her." Blake said simply, having removed the metal from the Sith armor she'd escaped in, lounging around in the plain black undersuit on Yangs mattress.

"I don't know how you live with her." Yang said simply as sat down against the wall.

"This is our first mission together." Blake responded dully.

"Ah." Yang said as she flumped down onto her mattress and looked at Ruby and Nora. "Now, do you two feel like telling me why you decided it was a good idea to attempt a two woman rescue on two Jedi… actually scratch that, why are you two here?"

Blake thought for a second before answering with a question: "If I tell you how can I be sure you won't go running to the Sith, you don't seem all that fond of us?"

"Do you seriously think I'd rat someone out to them!?" Yang demanded, slamming an angry fist into the floor next to her; scowling at Blake who simply said:

"You haven't exactly been welcoming to us, also Mandalorians don't typically have the best relationships with Jedi."

"You've never met a Mandalorian have you." Yang said dully, looking at Blake who nodded simply, causing Yang to bring her palm up to her face. "Yeah thought so. _Huhh…_ if a Mandalorian has a problem with someone we'd deal with it personally, we wouldn't rat someone out to a bigger power."

"Yes, that would mean admitting you're not the best fighters in the galaxy." Weiss said, stepping out of the Detox booth and looking around for a chair to sit on, or at least something clean looking. She didn't find it.

"Hey we are the best fighters in the galaxy!" Yang snapped back.

"Yes, clearly being able to shoot something makes you the best, I'm sure you're so proud of mastering your primitive gun combat." Weiss said, rolling her eyes… until Yang got up.

"You want to keep talking princess!?" She growled, her fists clenched tight as she looked at the white haired girl.

"Please, what could a Mandalorian do to a Jedi?" Weiss said, causing Yang to attempt a lunge at her before while Ruby and Nora dived at Yang in a desperate effort to hold her back.

"Hey we killed plenty of you!" Yang snapped back.

"We killed more!" Weiss yelled.

"Guys please stop fighting!" Ruby yelled, forcing herself between the pair. "This isn't getting us anywhere.

"Yes I'm with Ruby here." Blake said, standing up and looking at Weiss. "bickering like stupid children is not helping us."

Weiss scowled at the ground, probably realising she was being childish. So she composed herself and spoke:

"We need our briefing, hopefully the Sith won't have been able to break our encryption and our mission is still secret" She said, holding herself high and turning to Ruby. "Where did you put our data pad?"

"Here." Ruby said, picking up the pack and handing it to the white haired Padawan; who rummaged around and pulled out the pad, quickly typing in her password and booting the tablet up.

For a while Blake and Weiss talked, looking over the details before looking up at the trio of natives.

"Do any of you know where the 'Crow Bar' is?" Blake asked, looking at the Trio. Noticing Ruby and Yang exchange glances with each other.

"Yes we do." Yang said simply. "Why, you meeting someone there?"

"Yes, we are trying to meet up with a former jedi master in the hopes we can recruit him into helping our cause." Weiss said, noticing the smirk that sneaked its way onto Yang's face and the puzzled look on Ruby's face. "Why are you two looking like that."

"No reason." Yang said quickly. "Anyway, we can get you their tomorrow afternoon, Ruby's got an extra seat in Crescent Rose and I got room on Bumblebee."

"We really need to go as soon as possible, are you sure we can't get their tonight?" Weiss inquired as she looked at Yang who shook her head.

"No, for one thing we can't get in right now, none of us are old enough and the owner knows it." She explained as she stretched back.

"Then why do we have to wait until the afternoon?" Blake asked, her head tilted to the side. "Couldn't we go in the morning?"

This simple question caused Yang and Ruby to snort with laughter.

"Are we missing something?" Weiss snapped icily.

"Sorry." Yang said, fighting to keep a straight face. "But the idea of Qrow being up in the morning… _Pmft!_ "

"How did you know his name?" Blake asked, noticing the little detail they hadn't revealed to the group. Ruby was the one that answered:

"Oh, he's our uncle!"

…

"Grrrr!" Cinder was not a happy woman. Granted she rarely ever was, but today was a special case. She was lying on her bed in just the body suit she normally wore under her armor messing around with one of her oldest possessions, she was told to open it as soon as she got it. Unfortunately for her she'd been trying to open it for months now and so far she had barely cracked the surface. She looked down at her pyramid. The bronze red device was driving her insane and had been ever since she was first given it.

She was never quite sure why she'd been given it either, allegedly it had belonged to her mother and it had been given to her when she turned eighteen… and that was about the only thing she knew about it. She knew it must hold great secrets and power assuming she could open the thing, but it stubbornly refused to move.

"Come on!" She yelled, shaking the pyramid in annoyance.

"ARGH!" Cinder then proceeded to throw the Pyramid across the room (something she'd done more times than she'd like to admit) expecting it to bounce off the wall and fall to the floor where she would eventually retrieve the device, she could never leave it alone for long even if she had long ago concluded the thing was useless to her.

Except this time it didn't hit the wall, it stopped just a few feet away, floating in the air and spinning slowly.

Cinders unasked question as to why it was doing this was answered when the door slid open. Her questioning why she was disturbed was abruptly cut off when she realised who had entered.

"Master Taurus..." She said slowly, looking up at the Sith lord, who had lowered his hood revealing, revealing the bull horns growing out of his head.

"Do you know what this is?" He asked as he spun her Pyramid around in the air.

"With all due respect sir, mine." Cinder said, careful not to sound like she was demanding the Sith lord do anything he didn't want to, that was how you ended up cleaved in half with a lightsaber.

"You don't have to worry about me taking it, it's useless without you." He responded, throwing the device back to her with a flick of his wrist. "But you didn't answer my question, what is it?"

"I don't know sir." Cinder responded as she turned the pyramid over in her hands.

"That is a Sith Holocron." Taurus explained. "An artefact containing great knowledge, assuming the user can open it."

"It doesn't open… Sir" Cinder hastily added as she noticed Taurus reaching for his Lightsaber.

"No, You just don't know how to open it." Taurus responded, a smug smirk on his face as he looked over at her.

"Can you open it?" Cinder asked, willing to swallow her pride if it meant she could finally figure out what the device contained and why she could never get rid of it.

"Unfortunately not, whoever made this device was powerful and has locked it to you, no one else can open this. It has to be you… and even then you would need training in the Force before you could do it." Darth Taurus said, his smirk gone and replaced with an angry growl. "And that's annoying because this is an old Holocron and the symbol on the side implies it belonged to a very powerful dark lord, the secrets this device contains are most likely invaluable."

"…And I can't open it can I?" Cinder finished, looking down at the ground, her face contorted in rage as she looked down at the artefact.

"No, clearly you're too weak to open it." Taurus said, watching as her brow creased as she held the device tighter.

"What did you say!?" She hissed, her nails digging through and actually leaving scratches on the Holocron.

"Well anyone with even the most basic amount of training in the Dark side would have been able to open it by now, honestly it's not even difficult. I doubt the Force even flows through you." Taurus sneered, grinning as he got the reaction he wanted.

Her eyes flashed, the yellow iris's suddenly aglow as the device lit up, unfortunately she was so surprised that her anger was gone in an instant, her eyes returning to their usual dull yellow colour as the Holocron shut down and stopped glowing.

"I, what just happened?" Cinder asked, looking at the Dark Lord in the room who was casually leaning against the wall as he looked at her from behind his mask.

"What I suspected would happen, I got you angry and channelled your energy into the Holocron, obviously it didn't work but it confirms what I thought about you." He said simply.

"And what would that be?" Cinder asked carefully, looking up the Dark Lord.

"You're Strong with the Darkside." He said simply. "Have you ever wondered why your eyes are yellow?"

"Erm…" Cinder began to say, maybe it was because the eyes were inside her own head but she'd never thought there was anything odd about her eye colour.

"It's a side effect of being born strong with the Darkside of the Force, it flows through you, I once trained an apprentice like you and she had the potential to a Darth herself one day…" He clenched his fist before pulling in a deep breath, anger was a power source but it was not helpful when trying to explain things. "…But that ship has left port. You however have the potential to reach that level. You might be old however I can get you into the academy and you can learn to open that Holocron."

"…I will do it, however…"

Darth Taurus took note of her looking at the two other bunks in the room.

"You're weak if you let them hold you back."

"I find that loyal followers can prove helpful, Emerald can talk us out of anything and you will not find a better Vibroblade fighter than Mercury." Cinder responded coolly.

"That Holocron is important enough that you could bring the two with you, if it's really that important."

"Yes it is." Cinder responded simply.

"Then get them over here and pack, you're leaving tomorrow." Taurus said simply, standing up to leave.

…


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: All in the Family

Weiss was not a happy girl, once again unpleasant things were happening that she'd rather have avoided forever. Most notably she was bent over in the shower scowling at Yang who had a slight smirk on her face as she looked down at her handywork.

"Well I say it looks pretty good." Yang said as the Padawan scowled up at her.

"It will do it's job." Weiss shot back, looking up at her hair.

Weiss was very proud of her heritage, the Schnee line was proud and worthy of respect (Or at least formerly proud, its current reputation was in the gutter) and being one was immediately obvious. White hair was a unique trait that only came to them and them alone… so given she was trying to go undetected on this planet it was a smart idea to change it, but this…

The long white flowing hair that streamed down her back was gone, replaced with a short brown, roughly cut mess that stopped just past her shoulders. She ran her fingers through the freshly dyed mess, noting how uneven the cut was.

"It looks fine Weiss." Blake said from the side, admiring her own blond die job. "besides, it's better than getting caught."

"I know that." Weiss growled through gritted teeth. "But could we have had a competent hair cutter?" She asked, looking over at Ruby who was busy rummaging around in the supplies Nora had brought over, she was not pleased with the girls cutting work.

The Girl had actually surprised Weiss when she showed up this morning, partially because Nora looked like the type of person who wouldn't rise at any reasonable hour, and partially because she'd rocked up with a crate full of spare gear and rescores for them to use. For example hair dye and contact lenses.

"Okay found some!" Nora grinned, walking towards Blake and crouching down, the small container in hand as she handed it over. "You know how to put these in?"

"Yes." Blake responded, taking the contacts and carefully putting them into her eyes, turning them from yellow to brown.

"Gotta say I've never seen yellow eyes before." Nora said offhandedly as she looked over at Blake, who responded very simply.

"It's a force thing." Blake said dully as she looked up with her newly disguised eyes.

"Like the Cat ears?" Nora asked again, looking keenly at the furry black appendages poking through her hair.

"Yes." Blake responded, the look on her face indicating Nora should shut up, which she did.

"Actually we still need to hide those." Yang said, returning from Nora's crates, something black held in her left hand. "They stand out a bit."

"You have a plan?" Blake asked, looking down at Yang's hand.

"Yup." Yang said, offering what was held in her hand, it was a black hair bow, easily big enough to cover Blakes ears.

"How did you know she has a plan? Was that a force thing or is it more limited than that normally?" Nora asked. "Cause I've always wondered about how powerful Jedi were, I've tried asking Ren but he never gives me a straight up answer."

"If I answer that will you tell me why you have all these?" Weiss asked, gesturing towards the crate Nora had brought (Noting that Ruby was still rummaging around in it) "Or what you do for that matter?"

"Sure!" Nora said happily. "Not like it's a big secret or anything."

"Okay, to answer your question; it fluctuates. The force lets us interpret feelings as thoughts from our opponents; however currently I couldn't tell you." Weiss explained. "Something is keeping me and Blake from feeling the force."

"What could do that?" Ruby asked as she returned from the crate, clothing draped over her arm as she walked towards the group.

"I have no idea, and that's what's worrying me." Weiss said, looking down at her hands, wringing them together roughly.

"Hopefully we'll find out soon." Blake said simply.

"Yes quite." Weiss said, before looking up at Nora: "So, why do you have all this stuff."

"Oh, I'm part of the Underground, specifically I'm the girl you go to when you need something. I'm great at getting my hands on basically anything." Nora explained happily.

"So, you're part of the black market?" Blake asked.

"Sometimes when I can't get what I need." Nora shrugged. "Tend to avoid it, see we don't have any classy crime syndicates here, so normally that means trusting them to hold up their end of the deal is usually a very bad idea."

"I, sure." Blake said as Ruby threw a folded-up outfit at her.

"Tried to get the lightest gear I could." Ruby explained as Blake examined the outfit. "Also I just checked the weather, it's a storm tonight so we're going to need to go full body today."

"I wanted to avoid the rain if possible while I was here." Weiss muttered as Ruby threw her disguise at her. It… could have been worse. She had been given a fairly cheep light combat suit, a pair of tight fitting black trousers, a long sleeve black shirt with deep red gloves and a dull beige flack jacket to pull over it. Normally this sort of thing would fall far below Weiss' standards, but today she decided just to deal with it and get the outfit on.

Ruby's eyes practically lit up when Weiss took the outfit without complaining, grinning as she looked at Blake pull her own suit on (the same as Weiss' but with more of an olive green and grey colour scheme to it) before running back to retrieve the hoods she'd pulled out, attached to poncho like coats underneath it.

"How bad is the rain if it gets on your skin?" Weiss asked, concerned about her face (it didn't need any more damage on it) bringing her gloved hand up to her face gingerly, rubbing the small mark covering her left eye.

"You should be fine provided it you clean it quickly." Yang said, throwing Weiss a mask. "Use that if you're really worried about it."

"I, thank you." Weiss said, looking down at the metal mask, it had a 'T' Shaped visor to see through built into a grey metal face plate (Which Yang had spray painted a series of yellow doodles over)

"No problem, anyway I'm gonna take Blake over now." Yang said as she stood up, stretched and walked over to her swoop bike, straddling it and look expectantly at Blake while offering her a spare helmet.

Blake nodded, getting up and moving forwards. A part of her had forgotten what it was like to wear tight fitting clothing, it wasn't that she disliked it; it was just that traditional Jedi robes were very lose fitting normally for the sake of moving around. Still this was probably better for bike ridding than having fabric billowing around in the wind as she moved. Carefully she mounted the bike behind Yang before looking down at her hands.

"Where do I hold on?" Blake said, she suspected she knew where to hold, but some bikes had handles for their secondary riders and anyway, you didn't just grab the rider like that without them being okay with it.

"Oh just hold on to me." Yang said, gesturing to her waist which Blake carefully wrapped her arms around.

"Make sure it's tight, riding with Yang tends to get a bit…" Ruby began to say before Nora finished her sentence.

"Fun."

"I was going to say terrifying but sure, lets go with that." Ruby said with a shrug.

"I'll remember that." Blake said, pulling herself slightly closer to the blond Mandalorian. Trying to find something comfortable to hold onto given she was wearing her full suit of armor.

"Right, lets go!" Yang said, edging carefully out of the garage before gunning it, sending the bike's front upwards as she blasted down the street.

"Right, give it a few minutes then follow them." Nora said as she retrieved her worn pink hood off the ground and walking out the door. "Stay safe."

Weiss sighed as Nora left, happy to have some quite again.

"So… Weiss." Ruby said, causing Weiss to groan, she should have known the silver eyed dunce couldn't go a few minutes without talking. "I was wondering, what it like using a lightsaber?"

"What?" Weiss blinked, slightly confused by the question.

"I mean, I uses Gambol Shroud for a little bit back at the base; but I was wondering, whats it like for a Jedi? Like, how much do you train, is the Force involved?" Ruby explained, a smile brusting onto her face before slowly fading as Weiss just looked at her in stoney silence.

"Why do you want to know?" Weiss asked flatly through her scowl.

"Well I thought it would be cool, I like weapons and I thought it might be something good to talk about…" Ruby trailed off, looking down at the ground, her posture visibly sluming as she moved her feet around awkwardly.

Weiss actually felt… bad.

 _The Dunce is really trying isn't she?_

 _Yeah… you were kind of a jerk_

 _But I… well… Dammit._

"I suppose I can tell you a little bit." Weiss said, her scowl dropping as she thought about where to begin. "What do you want to know?"

"Where do they come from? Why does no one else have one?" Ruby asked eagerly. "I mean, their not manufactured are they?"

"No, each saber is custom made for each Jedi." Weiss explained. "At a certain point our master will take us to a specific temple (no I'm not aloud to say where so please don't ask me about it) we're then told to go into it until we know when it's the right time to come out, then we go in to assemble our sabers."

"Why do you need to go into the temple? Do you make Lightsabers with the force or something?" Ruby inquired, her head tilted curiously to the side

"Well sort off." Weiss said. "We use the force for assembling our sabers, however the temple holds a more important purpose, it's where we go to retrieve our Kyber crystals. We used to go to a cave on Dantooine before it was destroyed."

"Okay, what's a Kyber Crystal for then?" Ruby asked.

"it's what makes the beam for our saber." Weiss said. "Well, it focuses the beams, we add various other components to help but the crystal is the core of the weapon."

"Oh." Ruby said, leaning back and rubbing her chin.

"Does this not make sense to you?" Weiss asked, looking at Ruby who nodded.

"Seam's awfully complex for something a simple Vibroblade can stop." Ruby said, looking at the enraged look on Weiss' face Ruby hastily added: "I mean, why go through the effort of making a lightsaber? Why not just use a sword?"

"Two reasons." Weiss said, relaxing a bit, the dunce was confused; that was all. "One reason is the functionality, while a Vibroblade can indeed stop a Lightsaber it cannot do everything a saber is capable off. You can't use them to cut through blast doors and the like for example."

"Okay, what's the other reason?"

"Simple, A Jedi is a recognised symbol across the galaxy, it brings hope and confidence to soldiers fighting and the Lightsaber is the final component of this situation. Truly it is an honor to weild one and…"

" _Pmmpft!"_ Ruby snorted as she looked at the expression on Weiss face, she was loving this a little too much.

"Oh don't be a pest." Weiss snapped irritably.

"Sorry." Ruby grinned, gesturing towards Crescent Rose. "Let's head over now, I think we've waited long enough."

…

Yang could honestly say that if you'd told her she'd be giving a Jedi Padawan her little Sister recently broke out of a prison a lift to her Uncle (who was apparently a Jedi Master) on Bumble Bee she'd have called you an idiot. Their was no way that was ever going to happen… and it was.

Currently she was speeding along on the main highway system, her bike floating a few inches along the ground as she pushed it to go faster, noting that her passenger was gripping tighter and tighter everytime she sped up.

"Slow down!" Her passenger cried out.

"Why?" Yang asked, still easing back on the throttle and dropping to a slightly more reasonable speed and turning to glance at her passenger.

"The engine, it's really loud." Blake said, pointing towards the top of her head, what she was actually aiming for was admittedly under a hood and a bow but Yang got the point.

"Sorry 'bout that." Yang said, surprised that she meant it. While she wasn't fond of helping a Jedi she couldn't deny that Blake had proven far less annoying than her companion. "Didn't realise it was so loud."

"That's okay, I should be able to deal with this but…" Blake said awkwardly. "I forgot my earplugs."

"Opp's." Yang snorted as she pulled her bike off the main highway and down towards the slower lanes in the city. The journey would take longer but she wouldn't be causing trouble for her passenger.

"Don't remind me." Blake said, rolling her eyes as they set off again, going no where near as fast as it was going previously.

As they moved towards their destination Blake realised something, she could feel the force again. It was a shock to her but not an unpleasant one. The feeling of having life flowing back into her again was nice, it made her feel like she was whole again.

Still, while feeling the presence of everyone they sped past was nice their was a problem. Something was wrong, well several things were wrong but their where too big spikes. Blake knew what one of them was but he was never good at long range scanning so she should be safe from him. The more immediate problem came from her driver.

Yang Xaio Long was not radiating dark side energy. Blake already knew the girl was not that kind of person just from interacting last night, no the girl wasn't flowing with hate, but something was buried bellow the surface, something was within her.

Blake wanted to know what it was, no thigh enemy… well no thigh ally, the point still stood. She wanted to know what was going on with the girl. But still, she knew this wasn''t something you just asked. She needed to be careful if she was going to ask anything.

Fascination was the main reason she wanted to ask about her, normally Blake didn't ask people about themselves, the second she started doing that the second she had to deal with people asking about herself; and she wanted to avoid that. Still, this was too much, she had to ask something.

Her mind made up about what she wanted to say she carefully began to speak.

"Yang…"

"Hmm?" Yang responded, not looking away from the road as she carefully edged around the corner, she'd been clipped by idiots going to fast around corners before now and she was not having a repeat of that if she could help it.

"…Do you like us?" Blake asked, hoping Yang could fill in the blank slots herself.

"What do you mean?" Yang asked carefully, her voice on edge as she spoke.

"I can feel… something coming off you." Blake muttered carefully. "It's not bad, but… I don't know what to make of it… are we responsible?"

"Well to put it simply: I'm worried because of you, not about you." Yang said eventually.

"What do you mean?" Blake asked currioussly.

"Well I really don't want you around." Yang said. "I'm not a fan of Jedi and I'm really not thrilled to be helping you. But it's not because I don't think it's the right thing. I'm no fan of the Sith, it's why I do missions for the underground; I really want them off my planet and if I'm completely honest I do think the Jedi are probably the best equipped group to get them off… But…"

"You're scared?" Blake asked.

"Not exactly, I'm not scared for myself; I'm a Mandalorian, I can handle myself easily. But…" Yang's feelings suddenly spiralled towards a certain point in her mind and suddenly everything fell into place.

"You're scared for Ruby." Blake finished.

"Yeah." Yang said sadly. "I know she's tough and all but I can't help but worrying about her…"

"I think that's the normal reaction for a sibling." Blake said with a smile. Then something else sprang to mind. "But, why do you have to do everything? Do you not have…"

"We have parents if that's what you're asking." Yang said. "I mean, we both came from somewhere… it's just… they're not… you know…"

"Around?" Blake asked.

"Basically." Yang responded. "Dad's stuck off world because of the Sith right now..."

Blake nodded, she understood that. It had been hard for the resources of the Jedi to get her onto the planet, it's why the pair had spent their trip over stuffed inside a packing crate on a smugglers freighter. Cavilians would find it near impossible to get over here.

"…My Mothers alive as best as I know… admittedly I've never seen her, but as far as I know she's still alive. But Ruby's mom…" Yang froze up then. The words didn't want to come out.

"It's not my business, if you don't want to tell me you don't have to." Blake said, parents weren't the easiest thing for her to talk about.

"No, I mean… it was years ago now." Yang said as she slowed the bike down. "And I mean… she wasn't really my mom… but… Oh who am I kidding, yeah she was. Didn't care if I wasn't hers, treated me like I was. And, even when Ruby was born she never forgot me. She still made my favroute snacks, she still helped me out. She was great… then, one day… she left. I don't know why… looking back it's obvious she was worried about something… she said she loved us then left…"

Yang stopped now, she couldn't drive and talk about this, it just wasn't possible for her. She pulled her helmet off and rubbed her eyes as best she could.

"Anyway, I've lost two moms and I can't do anything for dad… but Ruby… I don't want to lose her too…"

"That's very noble of you." Blake said carefully. "But, why doesn't your Uncle help you out? I mean… he's family isn't he?"

To Blake's surprise Yang's response was to snort with laughter.

"Qrow should not be aloud near children, like ever." Yang explained. "I mean when he's sober…ish, he's okay. But believe me that isn't common for him."

"So he drinks too much?" Blake asked.

"I'm amazed he's even coherent enough to run a bar." Yang said simply. "Seriously you'll smell his place before we reach it."

"I think I can…" Blake muttered as she took a small sniff the smell of alcohol reached her nostrils, causing it to scrunch up.

"Guess those enhanced senses are kicking in." Yang said, able to fix her usual smile back on her face. "Come on then, shouldn't keep you from your mission any longer." She said as she pulled her helmet back on, kicking the bike into life and shooting forwards down the street.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: A Dusty Old Crow

As Blake dismounted Bumblebee she took a second to look at their destination. Like every building on Patch this place also looked far older and more worn out than it was because of the heavily weather beaten and rusted exterior of the building. Except unlike everywhere else on the planet it seemed the owner never tried to fix anything. At least a third of the windows were shattered, the neon sign declaring the bars name (Which used to read: The Crowbar, all sentients welcome) now read: The C-ow- a—s-s -. As a matter of fact the only bit of the building which was new was the awning Yang's Bike was parked under and that was a surprise to see apparently.

"Wow, never seen this before wonder where he got this from." Yang said, looking up at the awning, poking it, a grin bursting onto her face when her finger didn't go straight through the material. "Nice, we got some quality gear her. Now let's get on with your mission!"

Yang didn't screw around when it came to continuing Blakes mission, that is to say she literally kicked the door down carrying Blake bridal style yelling: "Yo Qrow! Got someone to see you here!"

Blake wasn't aware her skin could go so red as Yang dumped her in the bar and she shakily tried to stand up, which wasn't easy, partly because she felt week in the knees and more worryingly, because she couldn't feel the force again.

"Ah, I see you two made it." Weiss said from the corner, having been standing in a shadowy corner, determined not to make contact with anything but the floor.

"Where's Ruby?" Yang asked immediately as she looked around, advancing towards Weiss who rolled her eyes.

"Upstairs waking him up." Weiss said bluntly. "I didn't want to go any further into this place than possible."

Blake couldn't say she blamed her, the first impression she got upon looking at the CrowBars exterior had continued to the inside of the bar. Almost every seat in the place featured peeling coverings, the walls clearly showed that the rain was leaking into the building given most of the metal was badly worn… then there was the smell (which probably came from the dirty patch of unidentified substance splattered all over the bar.) Speaking of the bar Blake couldn't help but notice the bar was missing half its taps, and more stains on every surface.

"How does this place stay in business?" Blake asked curiously to Weiss who shrugged.

"Believe me I asked Ruby that, she didn't have an answer either." Weiss explained. "Part of me's glad I can't feel the force again, don't want to know what this supposed master feels like."

"Wait what do you mean again?" Blake asked, suddenly noticing her sense of Force was gone. "Did you get it back on the journey over like I did?"

"Wait what!?" Weiss blurted, her eyes boggling as she looked at Blake in shock. "You got your powers back on the trip here!?"

"You didn't?" Blake asked, a legitimate look of shock on her face as she looked at Weiss.

"No! so far it's only come to me while I was helping Ruby and last night when I was meditating." She explained. "I haven't felt a thing all morning."

"I do not like this." Blake said, looking around. "I mean, how do you even do this? Cutting off the Force so completely at such random times… it shouldn't be possible…"

"Well somethings doing it." Weiss countered.

Chanced are the two would have discussed this matter until Qrow finally graced them with his presence, however they never got a chance to because Yang (who hadn't been listening to their conversation) Butted in, grinning as she looked around the bar.

"Not the classiest place is it?" Yang grinned as she heard two sets of footsteps stomping down the stairs. The first thing she was Ruby, grinning sheepishly holding an empty bucket, followed by her Uncle… who was currently dripping wet.

"Oh, so you're the Padawans I'm supposed to help." The Man said. Blake and Weiss… were not sure what to think.

Jedi Padawans have a lot of experience with Jedi masters, obviously. They are mentors and trainers and most of the time something about them demanded attention, they were proud, stood tall. Usually decked out in Long robes and an air of having truly become one with the world around them.

Qrow was none of these things. Currently he was decked out in a dull grey tunic stained in what looked and smelt like most of what he had drank last night, his face looking half focused as his dull red eyes stared out behind his stubble and messy short hair.

"Are you… Jedi Master Branwen?" Blake asked carefully.

"Former, Jedi Master." Qrow corrected, walking behind his bar, grabbing a glass from behind the bar and filled it with a worryingly dirty blue drink of some kind that he promptly chugged before setting it down and vaulting over the desk, approaching the pair of Padawans and looking down at the pair. "And my name's Qrow." He added as he crashed into a seat at one of the bars booths, gesturing for the pair to sit opposite him at the bar.

Gingerly Weiss and Blake followed him, Blake getting their first because she wasn't gingerly stepping around all the stains on the floor in an effort to avoid putting her foot down in something that had (however briefly) been inside someone else's stomach.

"Right, so what does Oz want from me this time?" Master Branwen asked, a sentence which caused Blake and Weiss to look at each other with a shocked expression. Qrow snorted with laughter.

"What? You think this is the first time he's wanted me to do something?" He explained as he tried to sit up… Then apparently gave up halfway through and slumped backwards. "Anyway, what does he want."

"We don't know." Weiss said simply, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a small metal circle. "We were told to activate this once we found you, Master Ozpin wanted us to give you this."

"Oh great, he needed to verbalise this one." Qrow muttered darkly. "This ought to be good, well let's see this then."

Weiss nodded before activating the message. Ruby looked keenly in at what it was displaying, a man was displayed; Ruby had never seen a Jedi master before but this man seemed to fit the bill from what she'd head, with the long flowing robes and grey hair.

"Hello Qrow, I'm sorry to call upon you again…"

"Doubt it." Qrow smirked as Ozpin's message continued.

"…But I'm afraid I must, The Sith are making a move, armed with a fleet we haven't seen since Raven's time. I must ask you to investigate… you stand out less than the average Jedi and you should be able to move around without arising as much suspicion. I need you to find out what's happening and where these resources are coming from."

"Dammit Oz I'm done with this…" He began before the Ozpin hologram finished his message.

"Qrow, I know you want to stay away from this, I know it can't have been easy for you… But, that is why I must ask you to help; we retrieved these photos from the latest raid."

'Oz' then disappeared as several images flashed up on the screen. It was not a pleasant sight, the pictures displayed the wreck of a large corvette, its hammerhead front lying a good mile from the rest of it. A shot showing the interior of the ship wasn't much better, all the panels seamed wrecked, cut through with the unmistakable damage of a Lightsaber… as were most of the crew.

The massacre was insane, but Qrow was reacting the worst to it, looking in shock at the images.

"You didn't…" He muttered, his eyes focused on the pictures.

"She needs to be stopped, her and her new master." 'Oz' said, returning to view as the images disappeared. "I need you to find her Qrow, she's our only lead to finding what's going on here, I need you to bring her in."

'Oz' then disappeared, the message played the small display turned itself off, ready to be played again if the recipient wanted to. But he didn't, Qrow had already decided on what he was going to do.

"I'll do it." He muttered as he stood up, walking towards the bar. Before he did anything he really needed a drink.

"Qrow what's wrong?" Yang asked as she watch Qrow reach for a bottle of whisky… and then take several gulps straight from it.

"Your mother has done something really stupid." Qrow explained dully.

…

As it turned out the journey to the Sith academy was not a pleasant one. For one thing its location had to be kept a secret until they had earned a high enough ranking from a master, so that meant the entirety of this trip was spent with blacked out visors over their eyes stuffed into the back of a grotty old transport ship.

Admittedly Cinder's companions weren't that bothered. Mercury personally found the grunge and smell of sweat nostalgic, it reminded of his home back when his dad was alive. Emerald was basically fine anywhere so long as she had a roof over her head.

Cinder was… less pleased, she heard every creak of her chair, felt every grimy spot she was sitting on and it was foul. Then there was their guards. She knew they were their even if she couldn't see them, ever since she'd been made adhere of her connection to the force she began to notice things she'd never actively thought about before. Like how both of them were armed with Vibroblades and how much that guard standing on the left hand side of the door was staring at her.

She supposed she shouldn't have expected much else, all of them were dressed for the heat (Darth Taurus had warned them the academy was on a desert planet, no point in having potential padawans dying of heat stroke because their armor was too heavy) so her outfit was more revealing than she would normally go for.

 _Still, as soon as I learn how I'm strangling that guy._

Maybe he'd sensed something because soon after she thought that his eyes shifted off her.

 _Good, I'll make his death quick._

Soon after than she heard the sound of the ships landing gear sliding out and the engines powering down as their shuttle landed.

"You can remove your helmets now." The Guard that would get to live said as the three of them pulled the helmets off, finally letting them see something other than black.

"The academy is at the end of this path." The Guard that would be losing his life said, pointing with his Vibroblade. Cinder and her allys looked out carefully, at the end of a long valley of black rock they could just about see some kind of structure far off in the distance. "The trip is dangerous but if you survive you'll have at least earned the right not to be stabbed the second you walk into the building."

"I die and you lose whatever this Holocron contains." Cinder responded, holding the device up to the Guard's face.

"I'm sure we could figure out how to crack it open eventually." Guard who would be dying soon responded.

"Whatever big guy." Mercury said, his sarcastic drawl somehow managing it's usual thing of being the most annoying sound in the room. "Are you gonna give us anything to defend ourselves out their or what?"

The Gaurds snorted.

"Why would we do that?" The one who would be losing his life asked, a mocking sneer on his face as Emerald walked up in front of him.

"Because you want to." She said simply.

"Look girl…" He began to say before a thought entered his head: _Do I want to give them my Vibroblade?_

"You want to give me your Vibroblade." Emerald repeated, looking firmly at the Guard who nodded.

"Yeah, yeah I do…" He muttered, detaching the sheath from his belt and going to hand it to Emerald.

"Hey wait a second!" The one that was going to live cried.

 _How the hell can she do mind tricks already!?_

"Mercury." Cinder commanded as her grey haired companion leapt into action, bringing his leg up and driving it into his opponents guts, grinning as he tore his Vibroblade lose; playfully tossing it from hand to hand.

"Not a bad Blade he's got here." Mercury commented as he held the weapon out. "bit too much weight in the hilt though."

"I'm sure you'll do just fine with it." Cinder said dully as she stepped out onto the landing ramp, noticing how Taurus had been right. It was insanely hot on this planet.

"Geeze, I think my legs are gonna melt in this heat." Mercury commented as he walked out, looking down at the mechanical limbs that replaced his legs. (Neither Cinder or Emerald knew why he had the mechanical limbs)

"I'm sure they'll be fine." Cinder muttered darkly. "Now come on, it's a long journey and we don't have any supplies on us."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: All in the family

"My Mom!" Yang cried in shock, looking at her uncle who nodded before downing more of the whiskey bottle before slamming it onto the bar before countering.

"Yeah, that's Raven's saber alright." Qrow muttered as he looked at the photos again, studying the trademark saber trails Ravens poorly set crystal normally created.

"Saber… wait, my Mom was a Jedi?" Yang gasped, trying to wrap her head around what she was seeing, her Mom was a Mandalorian, how did she… what was she doing in the Jedi order?

"Emphasis on 'was'" Qrow said as he walked around the bar and sat down on one of the peeling stools. "She left the order slightly before I did."

"Why would she do that?" Weiss asked, looking at Qrow in confusion. Seeing Qrow snort with laughter was not the reaction she expected, Jedi were noble defenders of the galaxy, trained from a young age to be perfect examples to the rest of the universe… why would…

"Because my Sister's interest in joining the Jedi order went about as far as learning the best ways to kill them." Qrow explained as he leant back in his chair, retrieving the whisky bottle and offering it to the shocked looking Weiss. "Want some kid? And don't look surprised, my Sister wasn't the first to try and figure out how to kill Jedi, just most potential assassins don't get trained by their targets."

"I… how? The order recruits at an age to young for that sort of desire to have manifested, how did…" Weiss began to say before seeing Qrow laughing again. "… I'm sorry, what's wrong with my question?" She asked icily.

"Don't you know Jedi history at all kid?" Qrow inquired as he gulped more form the bottle Weiss hadn't taken. "When things get desperate the first thing that slips is recruitment criteria, then a master finds me and my sister and takes us in and well…" Qrow grinned darkly. "…Let's just say they might have regretted that decision later on."

"Wait…" Ruby muttered, something having clicked in her brain as she looked over at Qrow. "You and Raven trained at the same time?"

"Yeah, different masters but…" Qrow began to explain as Ruby stood up, something beginning to shimmer behind her eyes.

"You, you were learning to kill Jedi?" Ruby asked, the words having to be forced out as she looked at her uncle.

"Ruby…" Qrow began to say before Ruby stood up and wordlessly walked out of the room and into the kitchen, heading for Crescent Rose and sinking as low as she could into its seat.

Ruby wasn't stupid, she knew full well that sometimes you didn't have a choice and that sometimes you had to kill people for the greater good, but specifically training to murder a legendary peacekeeping organisation, the legendary Jedi order? The ones she'd grown up idolising, the group she'd risked her life to try and help out… this, this couldn't be what her uncle was really like, could it?

…

A few minutes later.

…

Ruby's thoughts were a mess, the time she's spent away from her Uncle had not helped her get over the fact he had trained to be a killer, how could he… he'd always seemed so nice, such a hero… how could he…

"In my defense I didn't have the best role models growing up."

Ruby jolted in surprise, Qrow was standing next to Crescent Rose, looking down at her and grinning weekly as he looked at her.

"Go away." Ruby muttered, shifting back as best she could, trying to sink even further into her chair.

"Look… I didn't become a Jedi for the best reasons, believe me I know that." Qrow said as crouched down, still staying outside of Ruby's speeder. "Can I at least explain why I didn't end up following those reasons?"

"…Yes." Ruby eventually muttered, her voice small as he Uncle joined her in the speeder, having to sit with an awkward bend in his legs to fit in the chair adjusted for the considerably shorter Weiss.

"Take a look at this." He said, reaching into his pocket and removing something. Ruby looked up, her silver eyes looking at the small square Qrow was holding. Carefully she reached out and took it.

"That's the original, your dad had a copy but I'm not sure he's want it around after…" Qrow sighed deeply.

Ruby looked down, realising it was a Photograph showing four people, three of which she recognised.

From right to left it depicted her Uncle, someone she didn't recognise aside from her looking a bit like Yang, Her dad in his full Mandalorian armor (though it looked a lot better than Ruby had ever seen it in real life) and…

"Mom…" Ruby said, looking down the Photo. Summer Rose was standing to the left of the image, wearing a white hood covering her body, most of her black robes hidden behind it, as well as most of her face.

 _Mom never was very photogenic… Wait, what's that?_

Ruby looked down at the Photo again, noticing something silver poking out from behind Summers coat, a small cylindrical object.

"Mom had a Lightsaber…" Ruby said slowly the implications of her possessing that clicking together as she looked up at her Uncle who nodded.

"She joined the order same time I did." Qrow explained as he carefully slipped the paper back into his coat pocket. "Except unlike me she actually brought into everything they stood for… kind of like you."

"So you were going to kill her…?" Ruby asked darkly, a thought springing to her mind that made her heart stop. "did you…!"

"NO!" Qrow cried out. "Ruby I never killed any Jedi okay, your Mom is the reason why I never killed any!"

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, looking up at her uncle.

"Summer was… well she was amazing." Qrow explained. "I wasn't a fan of her originally if I'm honest, she was always so happy, never seemed to feel bad about anything… so when me and my Sister got sent on a mission to Mandalore to stop a major war from breaking out I wasn't happy… then she had to go and save my life."

Qrow snorted as Ruby looked at him in confusion.

"Mom saved your life… she never told me that…" Ruby muttered.

"Ruby your mother was the most humble person in the universe, she could have saved the galaxy and she wouldn't have wanted anything, anyway she might have felt bad for only she saving most of me." Qrow grinned as he pulled his boot off, revealing his sock which had most of the toes worn out, revealing half of his right foot had robot components grafted on. "got stuck under a crashed gunship, Summer had to cut part of my foot off with her saber to get me out in time before we had an angry Squad of Mandalorians on our back."

"Did that hurt?" Ruby asked, looking at her Uncle's mechanical digits.

"Why do you think I drink so much?" Qrow snorted. "Still, after that day I changed, I lost my will to hate her, and… despite my better judgement I started to believe it to."

"But, what happened to her… I mean, are Jedi allowed to have children? Is that why she left."

"Summer left the order willingly and yes, you were the reason." Qrow said, then noticing the expression on Ruby's face he added: "She never once regretted that by the way. She wanted to have you."

"But if she was a Jedi why would she want to leave!" Ruby cried. "I mean, isn't being a Jedi… you know…"

Qrow sighed.

"Look Ruby, I know I told you stories about the Jedi and how they were, but they weren't always perfect and it was getting to your mom." Qrow explained as he fiddled idly with the passenger armrest. "Then shortly after Raven disappeared your mom learnt you were on the way and she had to make a choice."

"And she chose me?" Ruby asked, looking up her Uncle with confusion; had her mother really chosen her over being a Jedi?

"Yup, and she never regretted it for a second." Qrow explained happily. "You know she always wanted to be a mom, she told us a lot when we were out on missions."

"But I thought Jedi aren't aloud to have children?" Ruby asked in confusion, sure her uncle had told her that detail.

"It wasn't that we weren't aloud children, it was just advised against." Qrow said. "It's like… well you know when you eat an entire jar's worth of cookies?"

"No!" Ruby blurted, her eyes shifting around nervously, trying to pretend she hadn't had that feeling less than a week ago when Yang was out.

"Sure, anyway it was like that, they advised against it but you could still do it. Still if your kid was force sensitive you were supposed to bring them over to the order to be trained like any other padawan… your mother never wanted that for you."

"So, I really meant more to her than being a Jedi?" Ruby muttered, looking up to her uncle for conformation.

"You and Yang meant the galaxy to Summer, she would have died to protect you…" Qrow then looked sad as he scanned the ground awkwardly, sighing before concluding Ruby deserved to know he added: "…She did die to protect you." Seeing the shocked look on Ruby's face he quickly added: "I don't know exactly what happened to her, none of us do, but one night she showed up to my bar, scared out of her mind and told me I needed to look after you that night, that she had something she needed to do alone… I wish I'd gone with her that night because she never came back… I could have stopped her… but I didn't"

Qrow was scowling now, his fists clenched in anger as he stared at Crescent Rose's glove box. "I could have done something if she'd just told me, but she never did, she begged me to look after you two that night and ran off."

"So she abandoned me?" Ruby said as tears began to build around her eyes.

"Summer would never have abandoned you or Yang, she gave everything she had to being your mom and I know she would never leave you two unless she had to." Qrow said, watching as his nieces' eyes, well the tears didn't go away but they also didn't flow either. "Please believe, you and Yang meant everything to her."

"…God I feel like such an idiot…" Ruby muttered darkly, looking down at her hands and sighing.

"Trust me kid you're far too smart to be an idiot." Qrow said with a smile. "Anyway, I have something for you, never knew the best time to give it to you, but now you know your moms story you might as well have it."

He reached into his cloak and retrieved something hanging from the holsters built into it. Ruby took the object and looked down at the metal rod.

"That was your mother's." Qrow explained as Ruby turned the Lightsaber over in her hands, looking down at the silver weapon. "Me and your dad retrieved it when we found her…" He said, trying to get the memories of Summers remains out of his head.

"She went down fighting." Ruby said weakly.

"With you waiting back home she would have been giving it her all. I'm sure she wanted to make it back to you." Qrow said, looking down at his hands darkly. "I took it, I knew she'd want you to have it at some point… Now seems as good a time as any."

"Thank you…" Ruby said, smiling at the saber. Unlike Gambol shroud this weapon trusted her, almost feeling warm in her hands as she held it, a warmth she could barely remember flowing through her as she held it.

"No problem kid, besides I don't want you without anyway of blocking Vibroblades while I got you to Beacon."

"What?" Ruby asked in shock, looking up at Qrow who snorted.

"You think I'm leaving you two alone here while I go chasing after my Sister?" Qrow asked, his smirk firmly in place as he ruffled her hair. "Nah, getting you off this dumpster fire of a world and dropping you off at Beacon with the Padawans."

"But… what about the blockade?" Ruby asked in confusion.

"Will admit that might be a problem, but I know a pilot; might need to do some sneaking around to get us off this moon. Still I'm sure you and Yang know some people who could help us."

"Well yeah, I mean you might need to tell her this…" Ruby said with a weak grin before Qrow laughed.

"Oh she knows, her and the Padawans have been listening at the door since I came in here." Qrow said, waving his hand and forcing the door back, causing three figures to fall through, piling up on the floor.

"It was her idea." Blake said, reaching her hand out and pointing at Yang who laughed slightly while looking sheepish.

"Why must I work with these idiots." Weiss grumbled, actually wishing she had been left alone with the silver eyed dolt.

"Anyway, I take it you overheard everything we just said?" Qrow asked, looking down at the three of them as they struggled to their feat, nodding as soon as they could. "Great, we can work something out now."

"I'll ask Nora." Yang said simply. "She might have some idea how to get off of this planet, at least she'll know where to go."

"Well it's a start." Qrow said, getting up to leave before Weiss (who'd had the most difficulty standing up due to being at the bottom of the pile) called out after him:

"Wait! How did you know we were out their?" She asked, desperate to know why the Force had worked for Qrow but was still not coming to her or Blake.

"I sensed you, now come on we've got an escape to plan!" Qrow called back simply.

"That's not what I… Urgh." Weiss scowled as she looked at Ruby annoyed. "Is he always that unhelpful?" she asked.

"When he's sober it's about 50/50." Ruby explained as she jumped out of Crescent Rose, turning the saber she'd been given over in her hands.

"Yeah, trust me he's way less helpful when he's drunk." Yang added as she looked at her little Sister. "You okay?"

Ruby thought for a second before eventually looking up and nodding.

"Yeah, yeah I am."

…


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The best laid plans

Getting off planet as it turned out was not going to be easy, Nora had been digging around for over a week to get off planet and her results weren't exactly uplifting.

"Is it really this bad?" Weiss asked, looking down at the Data displayed on the tablet Nora had brought over. To which the Orange haired girl nodded.

"Yeah, and I don't have all the details yet so right now this is just my first impressions." Nora explained as she tapped on the screen a few times to enable the holographic projection function. Bringing up a planet map of Patch. The Blue holograms light reflecting off the Crowbars increasingly drab walls.

The Map did not give them any good news. The moon was guarded with about one hundred Sith ships, each represented with crude icons that pointed one simple fact out, The Sith had enough ships and firepower to completely blockade the small moon.

"Do we know anything specific about the ships?" Qrow asked, looking at the markings with interest.

"I'm working on it." Nora explained, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "But just getting the positions of each ship was hard enough, had to give a crate full of thermal detonators to Junior for him to put up as a prize in his races."

"Hence why Ruby's over there." Weiss commented, gesturing over her shoulder to the outside of the Crowbar where Crescent Rose was parked, the Dolt in question working frantically to get the speeder ready for racing.

"Yup… we don't want half the nutters on this moon getting their hands on that many explosives." Qrow commented before looking at the map again, spinning the display around to examine the entire moon. "You're sure there's no breaks in the blockade?"

"Not exactly." Nora explained, taking control of the display to bring up a section she'd marked. "See there is a way off the planet, but only one." She said, pointing towards a large hexagonal structure she'd marked. It seemed pretty big and the Sith had a large cluster of ships guarding it.

"But why do we need it?" Weiss asked, looking at the display again. "I mean, there's a large gap between the various blockade ships; can't we just fly through a gap? A good enough pilot in a small enough ship could get us through it no problem, that's basically how me and Blake got to this planet."

"Because you got caught." Qrow replied, a distinct smirk on his face as he downed whatever drink he had in his hipflask that day (Qrow liked to change it up every day)

"Hey!" Weiss cried indignantly before Nora spoke.

"Sorry Weiss but he's kinda right." Nora said, tapping on Patch's surface a few times to bring up a model of a tall cylindrical structure on the opposite side of the planet. "See they just got this online again, it's a shield station, projecting an energy shield around planet, nothing gets through and nothing gets out, unless it goes through the gate."

"But we didn't have to worry about that." Weiss pointed out, their pilot had just flown past the Sith fleets weapons, it was only bad luck with a bit of space debris that their ship went down and they ended up getting captured.

"Well the reason for that was because it had recently been disabled." Nora explained. "We needed it down so we could try and get a distress message out to the rest of the galaxy."

"Wait, you found someone brave enough to go out and destroy a major Sith facility, who on this rock was willing to try that!?"

"Hey I remember that thing!" Ruby said, having gotten up from under Crescent Rose, returned to the main bar with a drink in hand and plonking her oil stained butt down in one of the seats (It was saying something about the state Qrow kept his bar in that this was an improvement to the décor) "Me and Yang blew it up a month ago!"

"Of course." Weiss muttered, wondering why she was surprised to learn Ruby had been involved in something stupid and dangerous like that. "But I'm guessing they just fixed it up?"

"They got it running a few days ago if the information I got was correct." Nora muttered. "So that also means no outside help for us either, no transitions getting through, not that they wouldn't have been tracked anyway."

"Okay, so we're going through the gate." Qrow said, looking down at said gate. "any idea how we get through it without being blasted out of existence?"

"Not yet, I'm working on it though." Nora explained, looking sadder and more serious than was normal for the ginger girl, and everyone present knew why; hell Nora wanted to get off planet as much as they did and given all the work she was doing a ride off planet wasn't that big of an ask.

"Okay then." Qrow said, standing up and looking around. "Keep it up, you two keep your head down… tell that to Blake and Yang next time you see them."

"Will do!" Ruby smiled as she looked over at Nora: "You want a lift back home?"

"Nah, I got work to do!" Nora said, standing up and heading towards the door. "I gotta find out how to get through the gate! Security codes are not going to come cheap though…"

Nora looked down at the ground, her face fallen before she shook her head violently. Her usual smile returning to her face (Although it failed to return to her tired eyes)

"Still, getting off planets gotta be worth it!" She declared, pulling her tatty pink hood up over her head and walking towards the door. "Drive safe you two!"

Ruby nodded as she headed over to the back door, waiting for Weiss who stood hesitating for a second before running over to Qrow.

"Yeah?" He asked, looking down at the white haired Padawan (even if her hair was still dyed brown)

"I, I wanted to ask you something." Weiss said, trying her hardest to stay calm and polite as she spoke.

"What about?" Qrow asked as he focused on Weiss who took a deep breath before saying:

"I, Me and Blake, we've been having difficulty with the force recently, it seems completely random when we can and can't connect with it." Weiss said, looking up at the man for help. "I was wondering if… do you know what's causing this?"

"Yeah I know." Qrow said, absent Manderley retreating a glass off the shelf and filling it with something from one of his taps.

He then stood there, drinking from the glass as Weiss stared up at him expectantly.

"What?" He asked after an awkward minute had passed while Weiss rocked back and forth on her feet.

"Well!" Weiss cried, a little exasperated but still trying to keep a calm tone in her voice.

"Well what?" Qrow asked in a dull, almost board tone: looking down at the Padawan (who's efforts at staying polite finally began to fail.)

"Well what's wrong with the Force!" Weiss cried indignantly. "Why has it refused to work consistently for me or Blake since we arrived on this moon!"

Qrow stood there, looking down at the frustrated Padawan, wondering what to tell her, his eventual answer reflecting something interesting about the man.

When he was part of the Jedi Order Qrow had refused to take on a Padawan, he'd been offered many times but he'd always refused it saying he would be a terrible teacher and was better on his own. Still it was a shame he'd never taken on a Padawan. He knew how to teach a Padawan in a way that didn't just give them the answers and forcing them to learn and adapt by themselves.

"I'll give you a hint." He said, smiling at the look of rage the sparked onto Weiss' face. "There is nothing wrong with the Force and the reason you can't connect with it has nothing to do with the planet."

"Well what is wrong with it!?" Weiss cried out in anger, looking at the former Jedi who snorted with laughter.

"Be careful young one, Anger leads to the darkside remember." He grinned at the expression on Weiss' face as she both realised he was right and tried to counter this while still being completely filled with rage. Eventually she stormed out of the room through the door Ruby was holding open.

Qrow watched the two speed off before chuckling quietly as he took another gulp from his drink.

"Seriously Oz, you're still not telling your pupils about that?" He asked to no one in particular before getting ready to open his bar for the night.

…

"You doing okay Blakey?" Yang asked, leaning backwards over the banister in the shop looking down at the currently disguised Faunus girl.

Blake nodded, continuing to peruse the books on the shelfs.

Yang grinned before pulling herself upright and walked around the bookstore. Yang had to admit she hadn't been in this particular store much before now. Any spare income she typically received went towards food that would last an age so her and Ruby wouldn't starve when work was rare, or towards her bike.

That had changed once Blake and Weiss arrived. For their safety the pair had agreed staying indoors was probably the safest move, going outside only when it was completely necessary… Unfortunately Ruby and Yang's place was, to put it nicely… not well equipped and the pair had started getting agitated after a couple of days. To avoid this Blake had suggested a simple solution: Books, lots of books. So Ruby had made a quick trip over to Qrow and borrowed every book in his possession (Qrow often failed to be in any sort of state advantageous for reading)

Ruby and Yang had looked at the pile and concluded that should keep the pair happy for a couple of weeks… it hadn't.

While Weiss was still ploughing her way though some of Qrow's collection Blake read at he speed Ruby raced at, having already finished every book they'd been given within a week. Hence why Yang had taken Blake out to the bookstore while Ruby and Weiss got the update from Qrow and Nora.

So here they were, Yang meandering around aimlessly while Blake collected a tower of books to read, so big in fact the store keeper was in shock, this girl was close to buying everything in his store. (Yang wondered if Qrow would regret funding this particular trip)

Currently Yang was absentmindedly looking around on the stores upper floor, an area Blake had yet to reach given she seemed determined to check over every single book in the shop.

Yang smiled as she watched Blake moved around the store, bringing her massive stack to the front desk, paying with the wad Qrow had given her.

"Think you found enough?" Yang asked as she helped carry the bags of books out of the store towards the parked up Bumblebee.

"For now." Blake said simply. Yang couldn't tell if the girl was being serious or not as she carefully loaded the books into the storage compartments the bike possessed or putting them into the canvas carrying bag on the back of the bike.

"Seriously girl?" Yang asked as she straddled Bumblebee, looking at the Faunus girl who simply looked over at her with a smile on her face.

"Maybe." Blake responded as she leant forwards, wrapping her arms around Yang and holding on tightly (Given what Yang considered 'Gentle' this was a necessity when riding with Yang)

"Well then let's go home and you can start on that mountain of books." Yang grinned as she gunned Bumblebee forwards. Wondering if she was going to have to go out shopping for more books, then she turned around and looked at the girl holding on tightly behind her.

 _Well, it wouldn't be the worst thing ever if I had to spend more time with her._

…

The Walk to the Sith academy was awful, the planet it was located on was a hot nightmare and all of Cinders companions were sweating like crazy. It had got so bad that they had simply elected to striped down to their underwear, their logic being dignity could go stuff itself if the alternative was overheating and dyeing before they reached their destination (Though Emerald had made it clear that if she caught Mercury staring she was taking her Vibroblade to his nuts)

"Is it just me…" Mercury forced out as his metal legs dragged him forwards. "…or have we gone nowhere!"

Cinder had to agree with him, they'd been walking for at least an hour and so far they didn't seem any nearer to the academy then when they'd set off.

"Okay, we're stopping now." Cinder declared suddenly, freezing in place and looking around for somewhere suitable to sit down. "Something isn't right here."

Grateful to stop Emerald (Who's thin frame looked exhausted from the heat) threw her heavy pack off of her back and tossed it to the ground, collapsing onto it as she gasped for breath.

"So it's not just me?" Mercury asked as he too fell onto his pack, using the stolen Vibroblade for support as he looked up at Cinder who had eventually resolved to just stand where she was.

"No…" Cinder muttered. "…You two, I need time to check something, if something comes over here I need you two to keep it off my back."

"You're the boss." Mercury said, panting heavily as he looked around half-heartedly.

Cinder nodded before closing her eyes. She wasn't sure on how the reaching out with your mind thing was meant to work exactly, but she thought she had the idea down, so she reached out.

Something was wrong with here. She could feel presences around her, not wild native animals; people. They were around her now she knew it, something had to being go on here. She could feel people, they weren't that far away from her now she knew it. But that begged the question, if she could feel them why couldn't she see them.

They had to be hidden around here somewhere, in the rocks? Up on top of the cliffs, no there wasn't anywhere for them to be hidden…

"Cinder!" Emerald cried as she spotted dark figures moving out from the rocks, their robes blending them into the rocks surprisingly well, all of them holding Vibroblades.

"I know!" Cinder responded, having felt the figurers move around, her brain racing at lightspeed to figure out what was going on, there was nowhere for those figures to hide so how had they gotten to the point where they could fight them. "Keep me safe I need to figure this out!"

"You got it!" Mercury cried, jumping to his feet and pulling the Vibroblade out of the sand, instantly adopting a fighting stance that shocked his opponents. Mercury let a grin spread across his face. These guys were screwed, there might have been three of them against one of him… but those stances! These guys were not even close to his level. Mercury grinned as he sprinted at his opponents.

Emerald was distinctly less confident in her abilities as she readied herself against the three that were advancing towards her.

 _Well it worked earlier._

"You don't want to fight me." Emerald said, sounding a lot more confident than she actually was.

"Yes we do." The leader of the group said in a tone that suggested he thought he'd found an easy target, honestly trying to talk her way out of a fight, didn't this pathetic girl know where she was?

Emerald only just managed to bring the Vibroblade up in time to block the leaders first strike.

"You don't want to fight me!" Emerald repeated, putting more force into her voice as she fought to keep the sword in place and stopping the blade from moving closer to her skin.

"Yes I do!" Her opponent cried, grinning beneath his black mask as he put more force into pushing his blade forwards, noticing how the dark skinned girl was moving backwards and losing the fight to stay in control of her weapon.

"No, you don't!" Emerald yelled, and suddenly she was pushing him back.

 _How, how is this possible!? Why am I relenting!_

"Drop your weapon!" Emerald cried out, bringing her foot forwards and shoving her opponent back before bringing her leg up and driving a kick into her opponents leg, the attack caught him off guard as he fell backwards.

The masked figure growled in anger as he brought his arms forwards and lashed out, sending Emerald back off of her feet, sending her crashing to the into the sand.

"Now your gonna…"

"Drop the weapon!" Emerald yelled as the trooper fought to keep his weapon in his hand as each finger slowly uncurled and let the blade fall from his hands.

"Get her!" The masked figure yelled to his companions who ran forwards, trying to fight Emerald… except they didn't get a chance. Emerald had jumped to her feet and sent a strike towards the first opponent while yelling: "Duck!"

Naturally her opponent didn't duck, but he did have to fight back against the urge to do it… and that cost him the ability to dodge her strike, a similar fate reached the other opponent as she bellowed out: "Block!" A command which had the nice advantage of meaning he resisted the urge to do something that would have been helpful when it came to blocking the hilt of Emeralds Vibroblade as he sent him crashing to the floor.

"Not bad Em." Mercury commented, looking down at her defeated opponents. Before giving her first attacker a hard kick to the head with his metal legs. "Though you forgot about that one."

"Shut up Mercury." Emerald snapped, turning around to look at the group that had approached the Grey haired boy. "They're still alive?" She asked, looking down at the three combatants that had gone against him, all of whom were bleeding out of various injuries, mostly to the arms and legs.

"Eh, I didn't stab anything to vital." Mercury said dismissively before turning to Cinder. "Yo boss, found what you were looking for yet?"

"Yes…" Cinder commented, her face suddenly scrunching up as she reached forwards with her hands, reaching out at something.

"What is it?" Emerald asked. "What's going on? Where were they hiding out in the cliffs?"

"They weren't" Cinder answered, reaching out as she suddenly pulled something forwards, a loud sparking noise coming from somewhere as a small metal device was pulled towards her hands.

Then the valley disappeared, the black cliffs and sand holding their shape for a second or two before they broke down, the sand and rock flowing into a strange black substance that flowed out of the room, revealing them to be in a huge metal room, so large you could fly a decent sized shuttle into the room... which given the massive hatch in the ceiling was probably something that actually happened.

"The hell is this?" Mercury asked, looking around as a door slid open with a figure entering the room.

The figure was a tall woman, clapping her bone white hands together as she walked towards the group, her black robes trailing behind as as she walked towards them.

"Well done." She said as she got nearer to the group as Emerald and Mercury readied their weapons.

"Who are you!?" Emerald demanded, regretting saying it the second the words were finished coming out of her mouth.

"I am the master of this academy, I respect you for breaking the test; you truly are as skilled as Darth Taurus said." The woman said, a dark smile on her face as she approached the group, but mostly focusing on Cinder.

"Test?" She asked curiously, looking around the room they were in.

"Yes, we normally just see how long new recruits can walk before passing out as we put the heat up, it's the first time I've ever seen someone break the test." The Master commented. "I take it you're the one with the Holocron?" She asked, watching as Cinder nodded and retrieved the metal Pyramid from her pack.

"Good, well let's get you two some rooms, we'll assign you masters tomorrow, for now get some rest." She said, turning to lead them out, before turning around and looking down at the injured Sith Troops she'd sent after the trio. "You six, you're pathetic, get up and make your way to the medical centre."

The six of them grumbled up and staggered to their feet as they walked bitterly out of the room, staring angrily at the retreating backs of the new recruits.

…


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Boom

Ruby had a bad feeling as she pulled up at the starting line for that night's race, mostly because of who was on the line. Junior always drew some odd crowds when it came to his races, the start up of any given race was nearly always guaranteed to have a wide collection of racers in various vehicles, but it was rare to see an actual Sith lining up on the raceway.

Sith did race, everyone knew that, in their time off troopers loved to watch the races and sometimes compete with their personal vehicles. However never before had one been blatant enough to show up in Sith speeder and in full armor. It said something that Junior had left his box to talk to the driver.

Carefully Ruby pulled into her slot on the track before leaning over slightly to listen to the conversation going on between Junior and the Sith driving his speeder.

"Well this is a surprise." Junior said, looking down at the Trooper, his face a calm mask as he looked at the helmeted Trooper. "I thought you were supposed to be shutting these races down."

"Policy change." The Trooper responded simply. "Besides, we heard some stolen cargo was being set as the prize in this race."

"I'm amazed you didn't show up with a warrant." Junior responded, looking at the Trooper who snorted with laughter behind his helmet.

"Yeah right, like we're going to annoy the Hutt's." The Sith said. "My commander had faith in my abilities to win this race without messing with your system"

"Still don't know why you showed up in full armor." Junior commented, looking at the Trooper who shrugged simply. Ruby didn't buy that Junior didn't know why the Sith had shown up the way he did, any decent racer knew that there were two major battles necessary to win a race; the one on the track and the one in the head.

This Trooper was a presence despite being so short, His 49-80 Grid runner was a sight to behold, a long deep blue racer with a long bonnet and two heavy duty engines mounted to the back, each of them throbbing with power even when the racer was standing still.

Then there was the fact Sith weren't exactly known for being the friendliest organisation in the galaxy, sure you might be able to beat them on the track here, but would you be safe if they traced your vehicle back to your home with a warrant for your arrest?

The reason for showing up so blatantly was simple, it sent a message that the Sith were involved and you might want to consider leaving now if you valued your life.

Ruby had to admit it was a clever move, the only racers left on the line would be the ones who could protect themselves from the Sith (IE: the rich, most of whom were on good terms with the Sith whenever they visited their father's mansion for dinner, or high-ranking members of the Hutt cartel) Those who didn't fit into those two clicks but stayed on the start line were the stupid, and the Sith could deal with stupid people.

Ruby hesitated, the stakes in this race had gotten a lot higher, could she afford the risk of racing? Should she be in this race?

Then she took another look at the racers lining up on the line, aside from the Sith there was a few rich kids, pretty easy to win against provided you avoided getting caught up in their crashes, they probably wouldn't take the detonators if they won, some lower gang members, it wouldn't be great if they had access to that many explosives but given how many weapons Nora brought off them it probably wouldn't affect their ability to wreak havoc if they wanted to so it would be okay if they won.

 _Well it won't be great if any of them win the race but hey, it could be worse, it's not like the Sith aren't already drowning in detonators._

Not thrilled Ruby got ready to move Crescent Rose of the starting grid when someone arrived. A driver with a light green mohawk sitting in his pig of a racers bike like set up. Ruby groaned.

 _Russel Thrush. Great one of Cardin's idiots got out on parole..._

"You're gonna pay for what you did to the boss." Russel growled, looking down at Ruby from his racer.

Ruby didn't respond, she's spent far too much time dealing with Cardin and his group of idiots, none of them were good racers despite what they claimed, all of them went for Pigs and none of them flew well.

 _I think Russel's is worse than the others!_

His racer had controls similar to a swoop bike, a saddle like seat mounted at the back with two controllers in front of the racers main reactor… and oh boy was it bad, Bikes don't need a lot of power, they just don't; they just relied on the bike being so light a little bit of kick went a long way… Russel's bike… Ruby didn't even know where to start!

 _Those engines look like they belong on a frigging pod racer! And why are they mounted so low down, those things are going to be pushing the bike up this entire race!_

Ruby doubted Russel and his hunk of junk could actually win the race… but that was the problem, racing was a bit of an odd sport. Sure, it was in theory a sport that relied on skill, but things did go wrong. She herself had been taken out by a rich kid misfiring on the starting line and some rich kid idiot, who; by some astronomical feet of luck had managed to not crash and win that power coupler Ruby had wanted.

Russel had a chance to win this race and if he did Cardin's idiots would have access to very high power explosives.

She wasn't taking that chance, she was making sure he didn't win the race, maybe she'd just take the cash prize and let the Sith take the explosives.

'Plan' firmly in mind Ruby moved Crescent Rose back onto line, gritting her teeth as she looked forwards, moving her fingers up and down on the wheel as she fixed her silver eyes on the track.

 _Let's do this._

…

If Ruby had any luck (And that was a very big 'if') it was that today's circuit was a favourite of hers, like most of Juniors tracks it was built out of an Old Schnee facility, as a general rule the Schnee corporation didn't do any demolition if they could get away with it; meaning sites like these where common, this particular facility used to be a water processing plant, a particularly important function on a planet with acid rain/oceans. Unfortunately, the water had been a bit more acidic than the Schnee's had expected and there had been a major disaster when the main tanks gave out, bursting open and flooded the facility with the acidic water.

Surprisingly the place being flooded with dangerous acid made for a better race track then it would have been if it was dry. If you went off the track or went over acid patched you'd suffer badly, killing power to your racer, ruining your grip (Lift reactors push off of solid surfaces, they cant get a proper grip on liquids because they repel it) and if you were unlucky enough to go over too deep a patch, the crashing and sinking of your speeder, not something you want when you're sinking into acid.

To most racers this meant the track was a complete nightmare despite the amazing prizes on offer most stayed away from the lethal track, but for Ruby this made it perfect, being on edge and taking every line perfectly was her favourite way to race.

Then she looked across at Russel and the Sith Trooper on the starting line… No, today wasn't going to be fun.

She was on edge as the starting lights hung between two old support structures slowly turned on, going from red, to orange, then in the crucial instant, they went green.

Ruby slammed her foot down on the accelerator, Crescent Rose's engines screaming with determination as she shot forwards, Ruby watched her opponents carefully, as expected most of her opponents weren't a big deal, some of them crashing into disused offices at the first corner and one unlucky soul lost control completely, missing the office but getting stuck in the middle of an acid lake instead.

Ruby would have felt bad for him if she wasn't too focused on nailing the first corner herself, it was tricky because it frequently flooded, but not in a way that was noticeable (Unless you were dumb enough to walk around barefoot, in which case you'd notice after about four minutes when the burning kicked in) Nailing the turn meant knowing about the flooding and entering on a shallow turn that would get you to slide into the first corner, flowing sideways and turning so that you were pointing straight on for the first big straight.

Ruby did well enough when she hit the turn, she did clip one of the old offices but that was fine, Although, to her annoyance Russel also made it around the first corner, ramming through the office ahead and charging forwards. However, the biggest problem came from the Sith racer.

They were good, really good.

He nailed the first turn seemingly on instinct, gliding around the corner perfectly and nailing the transfer to the straight. Then he did it again, and again, weaving like a needle through the world's finest silk.

Nothing seemed to stop him, points Ruby clipped or water patches she slid across he nailed, practically flying through the track.

Ruby tried to remind herself that she wasn't trying to beat the Sith in this race, trying to ignore her usual instincts when it came to beating impressive new racers and instead focusing on Russel, which was much easier when he opened fire on her.

Ruby slammed the breaks on Crescent Rose to avoid the shots (Aimed at the exact spot Ruby would have been in if she's still been going at full speed) Annoyed that this cost her the lead on the aggressive opponent.

 _Well, he's not the only one with guns._

Ruby gritted her teeth as she flipped the safety of her of control sticks, grinning as she opened fire on Russel pig of a racer. As big as it was Ruby couldn't hit him, he'd gunned it and was charging forwards at an insane speed, diving around an upcoming corner before Ruby could hit him.

 _Great, he knows how to tune an engine properly…_

Ruby was annoyed but she kept going, her chance to overtake was coming soon, she just had to race as well as she could so she didn't lose any more ground on Russel.

She didn't miss a beat, Crescent Rose danced with her at the wheel, her earlier mistakes a thing of the past she was sliding between the office buildings and ducking under the old pipes, even taking a shortcut through a section of piping that let her cut through a nasty series of turns that usually caught her out, she shot into the rusted pipe and blasted forwards at a ridiculous speed, shooting out of the end, Russel back in view.

Ruby grinned, his Pig of a racer was finally letting him down. This area (Known as the stretch) was an absolute nightmare if your racer couldn't turn properly. About three hundred meters across and about six thousand meters long the Stretch was near impossible to navigate safely.

Most of it was flooded and even the best racer alive couldn't avoid hitting any acid, the trick was knowing the best route to fly on, negating the amount of time you needed to spend over acid. Figuring this out on the fly was just impossible given how obscure it was

 _This is why I dragged myself down here every day for a month._

Russel was trying to go for the straight line, just trying to brute force his way though the problem, flying forwards and putting more and more power behind the racer, hoping to just keep moving even as it lost power and scrapped across the ground.

Ruby wasn't doing that, she aimed along the perfect line, aligning her speeders nose with the old radio tower, gunning forwards before skidding along the ground carefully; nailing every turn, spending less than five seconds on the acid.

Even the Sith racer was making mistakes, he might be a natural at racing but he was new on the track and you had to work this out, Ruby actually managed to pull up alongside him, grinning as she prepared to overtake, completely forgetting that she wasn't trying to win this race and chances are she would have won if only Russel hadn't been behind her.

She got a split seconds warning, enough for her to slam the rear lift reactors into overdrive, sending Crescent Rose up, exposing the underside which then got hit by the blaster bolts, tearing through the footwell on the passenger side, sending her crashing forwards, slamming down into the ground upside down.

Ruby coughed like crazy as she freed herself from her seat, dropping to the ground and crawling out, surprised to see an armoured glove being held out to her.

"Are you okay?" The Sith Racer asked, offering his hand, which Ruby took, she was week after the crash and she really wasn't up for doing anything unsupported.

"Bit woozy…" She admitted, suddenly realising something.

"Wait… why aren't you racing?" She asked, looking around dully at the Trooper, who's speeder sat carefully parked a few feet on a none flooded area of track.

"Something's wrong with the speeder, think it's the cheap fuel they're giving us." The Sith explained, as she supported Ruby carefully. "Sorry to see your speeders out, you were amazing out there."

"Eh… I could have done better…" Ruby admitted as she looked over at the upturned Crescent Rose.

"Here I'll help." The Trooper said, removing his helmet, presumably he did this, so he could see what he was doing better, but Ruby was a bit distracted by what was underneath, specifically the fact 'he' was clearly a she with sea foam green hair complemented by her dark green eyes, grinning as she reached down to grip Crescent rose. For a second Ruby wondered about her voice, but then she remembered what it was like talking in the helmets, your voice always came out as a mangled mess.

"I'm Reese." She said, digging her fingers under the Speeder before turning to Ruby. "Hey are you going to help here?"

"Huh, yeah sorry." Ruby admitted, bending down to help with the speeder, bending her knees and staining along with Reese to get Crescent rose the right way up.

"Nice machine you got here." Reese said, walking around the battered racer, looking at its tuned engines and formerly stunning paint job. "Shame that dick had to ruin it."

"I'm proud of her." Ruby said, smiling as she inspected the damage to her footwell, glad to see the only damage other than that was the fact her glove box was ruined. "Man I hate that guy…"

"Eh, not much you can do; Just leave it to our warrant guys." Reese said simply, walking over to her speeder to lean on its side, before stopping suddenly. "Hey… I just had a thought!" She said, a grin spreading over her face before she span around and leaned down, rummaging around for something, before standing upright, a colourful peace of paper in her hands. "You're an great pilot and my boss told me to give these to any talent I saw on the track!" she explained, offering Ruby the paper, which Ruby took.

Looking down she saw it was a recruitment flyer, it was mostly the usual propaganda guff which Ruby would except before using it as a toilet cleaner or something… then she spied something at the bottom of the page, text reading: _We invite you! To come down and tour our facility, See the Speeders, see the scout armor, See…_

Ruby stopped reading at this point, looking up at the hopeful Reese she smiled and said: "I'd love to come down and see!"

"Yeeeaaaaaassssss!" Reese cried, pumping her fist hard. "You have no idea how badly I've needed another competent racer, you better be there! You got it!"

Ruby nodded, a plan forming in her brain as she clambered back into Crescent Rose:

"Try and stop me!"

Ruby almost felt bad for Reese as she drove off, she had no intention of signing up, but they had a week before the event, that would give her side more than enough time to figure out how to break off from the group and dig around in the base, maybe if they were lucky stealing some security codes…?

Ruby grinned, she might not have got the detonators back, but she had a plan now and that was better than nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Breach

Blake wondered if it was a good idea for her to intentionally visit a Sith base, her face was well known and even if this wasn't the facility that had held her, intentionally walking up to an enemy stronghold seemed like a bad idea.

Still chances are they were going to need a code breaker and she was the best at doing that on the fly. She also wished either Weiss or Yang were with them, Ruby was a nice enough girl but she was not who Blake would have chosen to break into an enemy base. Mostly because that required the entrants to be able to sneak around without being detected; the silver eyed girl was many things and 'Subtle' was not one of them.

She sighed under her hood, blowing a strand of freshly re-dyed blond hair out of her face. It might have been overkill but she didn't care, she wasn't going into that base without the most airtight disguise possible.

The pair was stopped just outside the main gate, joining a queue of people all lined up at a pair of checkpoint booths, specifically one for men and one for women. Blake wasn't one hundred percent sure but something seemed off about the ques, maybe because the man manning their line was almost inhumanly attractive, or that the woman manning the men's line had her uniform open in a very un-Sith manner.

 _So they want us on their side before we even get through the gate._ __Blake concluded as they approached the booth.

"Well who do we have here?" The man asked, looking down keenly at the two girls. Letting out a dazzling smile as he looked at the pair.

 _Yup, this is a PR move, no way a serious checkpoint worker would do that_

"I'm Ruby Rose and this is Belle O'hara" Ruby explained, gesturing vaguely at Blake who hoped the smile in her face would hide just how little this guys charm was working on her.

"Well its nice to see you two." The guard said, smiling widely at them as he punched their names into the system, pointing towards the security scanner a few feet in front of them. "Just head through there and then we're good, sorry to be a pain but we need to make sure you're not carrying anything that could be used to spy on us with you, we had an incident at the admin plant a few weeks ago so we need to be sure."

Blake noted that he didn't explain what said incident was, IE: 'Our two most heavily guarded prisoners managed to escape from right under our noses and disappear for over two weeks' Smiling genuinely she stepped through the scanner, the clean beep going off before she was gestured through, smiling while taking a split second glance down at the bag she was carrying, happy that the lining meant to disrupt scanners hadn't ruptured.

Soon they were a part of a crowd of teenagers being led around the Sith Base, Ruby was drinking everything in, her eyes darting all over the place. Blake wasn't, she'd been in places like this before and she knew everything their guide was saying.

Soon they were inside a storage Wearhouse, tall shelves stretching to the ceiling, it was full of working droids, going about their day and staying off the pre-marked path for the tour. This was the point Blake decided to duck out, tapping Ruby on the shoulder she gestured for her to follow her off down an aisle, hiding in the shadows (Droids didn't need the same lighting humans did thus the Warehouse was poorly lit) while the rest of the tour group continued on.

"Okay we've got some time." Blake said, darting off down the aisle, approaching a door, her quiet footsteps barely making a sound as she moved along, approaching the keypad in such a way only the most skilled of detectives could have found her.

Her Partner on the other hand…

"Argh!" Ruby cried as she tripped over a loose floor tile, falling flat on her face with a loud _'Splat'_

"Ruby be quiet!" Blake hissed, her ears twitching around as she strained to hear anyone coming.

"Not all of us can see in the dark!" Ruby shot back in an angry whisper before she stood up, dusting herself off.

"Point, but be careful!" Blake hissed. "I've seen what the Sith do to prisoners."

While she was talking she was messing around with a computer spike, happy that the Sith locks were just as cheap and easy to break through as ever as it slid open.

"Okay, I reckon the tour's got about an hour left." Blake explained as she shut the door behind them. "We need to find those codes and rejoin it before it's over if we want to get out of here easily." Ruby nodded and the two set off.

…

Normally Blake would miss the force, well she still did, but being in a facility manned entirely by droids meant the difference wasn't as big as it normally was. She could just about stand its absence, but it was getting to her, why did it keep vanishing, its timing was all over the place, sometimes being available and sometimes not. Unlike Weiss she hadn't bothered Qrow about it, he clearly wasn't telling them what it was, maybe that was how he taught people?

She shook her head, it didn't matter. The force being absent had its advantages.

 _If I'm lucky he can't detect me same as I can't detect him…_

Blake sighed, that hope was shaky at best, hoping for something she didn't understand to keep her safe against him.

"Blake is that what we're looking for?" Ruby asked, pointing ahead of them at a large round door with a heavy duty control panel located next to it. B

"Yes it is… Hide!" Blake cried, grabbing Ruby and shoving her into an alcove suddenly.

"Blake what's…" Ruby began to ask before Blake clasped her hand over Ruby's mouth, shutting her up as she carefully peered out.

It took a second for it to show up, the whirr of a droid moving around that Blake's ears had heard long before Ruby's did, carefully she looked out and saw...

 _A janitor droid…_

"That's what scared you?" Ruby asked, looking at the box as it moved along, its brushed spinning away while heat shot out of its back end. "It doesn't look that threatening."

"It could still raise the alarm." Blake responded as it passed, moving over to the doors control panels. "Besides we destroy it and the Sith will know something went happened here, we're trying to go unnoticed."

"Blake there are cameras everywhere." Ruby pointed out as Blake set to work on the console.

"Yes but this facility is huge." Blake explained, hear ears pulled back in annoyance as she failed to crack the code again. "They can't check all the cameras all the time."

"But this is an important area isn't it?" Ruby inquired, looking down at Blake who was running out of spikes. "Wouldn't it have extra monitoring if it's that important?"

"Not if they don't have a reason to use it." Blake explained simply. "They're probably following the tour group right now, you know, the new possibly unknown group that could be planning anything."

"But wont they have noticed us leaving?"

"I hope not." Blake muttered, wishing less of the plan was improvised, also that she had more spikes. "But remember, the weakest link in a chain is usually the human one, meaning they most likely aren't watching us right now because this corridor is really dull if it's droid only most of the time, sure they might have noticed us vanishing but they won't immediately look over here.."

Blake worked in silence for a couple of minutes before swearing under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Ruby asked as Blake stood up properly.

"I can't crack it." Blake said simply, glaring at the computer in annoyance.

"So what do we do?" Ruby asked, glancing down at Blakes bag, knowing what was hidden in there. "Do we break them out?"

"That would give it away in a second, they'll figure out what we wanted and have us caught almost instantly, even if we got away with the code's they'd get changed within the hour, we'd have to break in again and I guarantee you security would be far less relaxed." Blake explained. "I hate to say this but we should bale, this mission is a bust."

Ruby was crushed, this was her idea, she was so sure it would have worked… also, there was Blakes expression, one which said she wasn't surprised in the slightest that this had happened.

 _She never thought my plan would work did she?_

That annoyed Ruby, she was young and fully aware she wasn't Blakes ideal friend… but this, being so willing to give up on the plan…

 _Come on Ruby think! There has to be a way to make this work…_

"Ruby we've got another cleaning droid coming, we need to go now!" Blake said, grabbing Ruby's wrist… although she let go when she saw the girls silver eyes expand dramatically!

"We can't cut through the door…" She muttered, before looking up at Blake, the taller girl slightly taken aback at the massive grin on Ruby's face. "…But what if the door got damaged by accident?"

Blakes eyes also expanded as she got what Ruby was going for.

"Can you hack the droid?" She asked, Ruby simply smiled.

…

So Ruby did her thing, hiding in a cleaning cabinet built into the wall, waiting for the droid to stop (specifically because it's path was blocked by cleaning supplies scattered all over the floor) Stepping out of her hiding spot (Finally letting a very compressed Blake breath as space became available for her) And began messing around with its system, soon it gave up on it's cleaning efforts, moving back before focusing on the round door, driving forwards at a speed its limiter normally didn't allow.

Ruby couldn't help but feel a burst of childlike glee as it crashed into the door, buckling it dramatically and letting the two girls squeeze into main server room.

"Okay, that will have gotten someone's attention." Blake said, looking around before running over to the main console. "We need to be out of here before a security team gets dispatched."

Blake was hoping that a droid accident was going to attract less attention than a full on break in, praying that they wouldn't rush to deal with this problem as she worked on the control console.

"How long has it been?" Blake asked as she frantically worked with the system console.

"Four minutes." Ruby responded, waiting by the door and peering out at the hallway.

"Six minutes left." Blake muttered, going off a rough guess she'd made over how long it would take for a team to reach them.

"How close are you to getting in?" Ruby asked, glancing away from the door to look at the scrolling red text Blake was working with.

"Nearly there…" Blake said, allowing herself a small smirk as the files finally opened up.

"You got in?" Ruby asked.

"Yes." Blake said, finding the codes quickly. The locks weren't the only thing that hadn't changed since then, they even kept the files in similar locations.

"Got them." Blake said, removing the ejected disk and shoving it into her bag, while also retrieving a similar disk.

"What's that for?" Ruby inquired as Blake loaded it in, hitting the execute button next to the screen before walking away.

"Covering our tracks, it'll create about three hundred random searches to hide what we were looking for if anyone checks the system history." Blake explained as the two slipped out through the buckled door, relieved to see no one else was present.

"Will that work?" Ruby asked as the two of them hurried off down the corridor.

"It should." Blake shot back.

 _They wrote the damn thing after all_

"Okay, how are we going to find the tour group again?" Ruby asked, glancing around as they moved forwards.

"We exit back in the warehouse, leave the way the group we were following, then act like we got lost to the first trooper we find." Blake explained as they rounded a corner and came face to face with the sort of thing they'd been hoping to avoid.

" _Warning, you have entered a restricted area. Stand down or be terminated."_ A security droid said.

Ruby's brain kicked into gear as she looked at the thing. She didn't know what precise model it was, vaguely humanoid in shape, with the usual limits you expected from a droid; IE: one fused together toe, three fingers instead of five and a vaguely helmet like face. Armed with a magnetic bow staff weapon and a small blaster built into its left arm.

 _Okay it's designed for detaining people more than lethal force, so we won't die… but Blake can't be captured… we need to take it out. Hmmm… No transmitter… must be closed circuit._

"Blake…" Ruby said, looking over to the cat Faunus who'd already reached into her bag, retrieving Summer Rose's Lightsaber (Which was unnamed as far as they knew) and tossed it at Ruby before pulling out Gambol Shroud, splitting it in half and igniting both purple blades.

Ruby caught her mother's saber, breathing deeply and flicking the power on.

It was strange to see, its grey blade igniting, traveling out and stopping at about three and a half foot long. Ruby adopted a readied position, remembering the lessons her uncle had taught her when she was young, it wasn't quite the same thing with an actual Lightsaber; certainly different from a metal rod…

" _Hostile actions detected. You will be detained."_ The Magna Guard responded, igniting its staff and reading itself.

 _Whoever programmed this knew what he was doing… dammit._

Ruby adjusted her stance and stared down the droid, getting ready to fight, she took a second to look over at Blake, she was confident in her stance; both sabers confidently held in her hand.

The two of them lunged the second the droid brought its staff up, trying to end the fight quickly, sadly the droid was faster, bringing its staff down and blocking the three sabers. Thus the three way fight began in full force.

Ruby was holding her own well enough, managing to hold off the droid well enough, not taking any hits herself as she wielded her mother's saber.

Blake was not handling herself so well, not because she wasn't a skilled fighter; she was immensely skilled and perfectly able to counter everything the droid threw at her, barley breaking a sweat as held her opponent off… However.

Imagine for a second you've had something you're really good at your entire life, and then imagine part of the reason you were so good was because of a voice in your head, constantly pointing you in the right direction, giving you hints and guidance, ect…

Now imagine that was suddenly gone.

This is what Blake was going through right now, she was doing well given the circumstances, however without the force to guide her, her fighting just felt off, she'd come dangerously close to hitting Ruby (Who'd only just managed to avoid Gambol Shrouds blades) and annoyingly she wasn't beating the droid, it was still standing and had one advantage they didn't: It didn't get tired.

Blake was starting to tire and Ruby must have been close, Blake trained hard every day of her life and so far all she'd ever seen Ruby do was eat cookies, both of them must be close to their limit…

 _Vrrrrraammp!_

Blake blinked, Ruby had sliced the droid in half while it raised its staff to block Blakes attack, Ruby had ducked under and slashed at the dorids core.

"Okay, come on we need to get this thing over to the wreckage." Ruby said, picking half the droid up and dragging it towards the door to the main server room.

"I… Right." Blake said, still shaken over Ruby's fighting, it was insanely reckless to jump under and attack like that, Sure Jedi could do it with the force on the side…

Her brain was still processing Ruby's fighting as they sneaked back into the wear house, hoping the security droid split in half near the wreckage of the crashed cleaning droid would fool anyone, or at least not make anyone dig to far into it.

Thankfully they reunited with the tour and managed to get through the rest of it easily enough, Blake feeling that them being able to just walk out the door afterwards was enough to convince her they didn't suspect them of anything.

It was on the walk back that Blake finally asked Ruby what was on her mind:

"Hey, Ruby…" She muttered, looking over at the silver eyed girl.

"Yeah?" She responded, looking at Blakes bag nervously. "We didn't lose the codes did we?"

"No, no!" Blake said, nervously glancing down at her bag, the comforting weight of the code disk still resting in it. "I just wanted to know, while we were fighting the droid… Your final move… how did you know it was going to work?"

To her immense surprise Ruby just shrugged.

"I didn't, I just saw an opportunity and I took it." She said, smiling simply up at Blake who stared back at her aghast.

"You, you, you did that without knowing it was going to work?" Blake asked, her brain struggling to process what the girl had told her.

"Nope." Ruby said simply.

Blake stopped, she just froze up and looked at Ruby.

"I… What?" Blake muttered. "I mean… Why would you…"

"Well we're stopping that droid from hurting me, So I figured I was fine!" Ruby said, grinning happily as the rain started to fall.

"I…" Blake muttered as she pulled her hood up, watching as Ruby did the same thing.

"Come on, we can get off this moon now!" Ruby said as she headed over to where Crescent Rose was parked, pulling the tarp off it before climbing in.

Blake stared at the silver eyed driver before rolling her eyes and climbing into the passenger seat.

 _We're coming Home Beacon, just hold on a little bit longer._

…


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Escape Patch

Ruby was careful with how she drove, after the shit they just pulled there was no way she was going to get caught due to a speeding offence. So, for once in her life she actually obeyed the speed limit as she drove; guiding the speeder back home and pulling up simply.

"You got it?" Weiss asked, looking down at Blakes bag, the Faunas responding by nodding and pulling the disk out. Yang however was more interested in looking her little sister over.

"What happened here?" Yang asked, pointing down at a small tear in Ruby's shirt.

"Oh, erm… wasn't quite fast enough to avoid a security droids Magna staff… it's nothing really…" Ruby muttered, trailing off as Yang's eyes widened.

"Oh my god! Are you okay? Is the plan bust?" Yang cried, looking over her sister frantically for other injuries.

"It's fine, no one on the security team saw us." Blake explained.

"How do you know that?" Weiss asked, looking over at Blake, an eyebrow raised.

"If they knew we had this disk they'd never have let us leave." She explained, her ears flattening under her bow.

"So… are we good then?" Yang asked, having looked her sister over and concluded nothing was seriously wrong with her. "We can leave?"

"In Theory yes." Blake explained. "Assuming your uncles pilot comes through."

"Well no sense waiting around!" Yang declared, a manic energy on her face as she walked over to her swoop bike, straddling it before turning around and saying: "I'll go let Qrow know we pulled it off, Ruby can you get Nora?"

"Yeah." Ruby nodded.

"Great, Blake Guard that disk with your life, Weiss…" Yang sat on the bike for a second, finger on her chin as she thought for a second. When her brain came up blank she settled for just driving the bike out the door.

"Charming." Weiss scowled, listening to the bikes engine fading into the distance.

"Don't worry Weiss, you can come with me." Ruby grinned, pulling her hood up over her face. "I need a look out when I open Nora's door anyway."

"Great, I'm a security camera." Weiss muttered darkly, even as walked over to one of the clothes rail and pulling her full body suit over her.

"I'll pack our stuff ready to go." Blake said, gesturing towards a pile of travel bags stacked up in the corned. "Something tells me we don't want to be waiting around long, again assuming your Uncles ready to go tonight."

"We probably will be, Qrow does a lot of thing's last minute." Ruby explained. "Anyone who knows him knows he just likes to drop in at stupid times and demand they fulfil promises they've made."

"Okay then, stay safe you two." Blake said as the two Sisters ducked under the faulty door and entered onto Vale's streets.

…

"Why did it have to rain?" Weiss asked, peering out from under her hood, wondering if it was thick enough to stop the torrent of acidic rain belting down on them.

"The weather's always awful." Ruby said offhandedly as she guided Weiss down a market street, half of which was abandoned; half of which was full of Patch's nocturnal residents. "Any rain storm that starts will pretty much last until the next day. At least."

"I don't know how you stand it here." Weiss muttered darkly, looking around at the weather beaten town. "The weather's much nicer at Beacon."

"We'll be back there soon." Ruby said as they ducked down a side ally, heading off towards their friend's house. The pair of girls were smiling, soon they would be safe an out of danger, hell they weren't in much danger now, no one knew about the break in and soon they would be free.

Well, at least they wouldn't have been in much danger if not for the Dug running the stand they'd just passed. If they knew he'd heard what they'd said and relayed Ruby's appearance to the Sith base. And what she was planning. If they'd known that they would have been a lot less happy.

…

"Yo Qrow!" Yang called, having walked into the Crowbar, grinning madly as she walked into the bar. The crowd drinking inside looked over at her as the blond strode across the bar, smiling as she plonked herself down at one of the bar stools.

"Yang you know I can't serve you… here." Qrow said, walking over to Yang who grinned, under the cover of the background chatter of the bar Yang asked:

"How's your pilot?" Yang asked, smirk on her face as she saw the taken aback look on Qrows face.

"They pulled it off?" Qrow asked, deliberately keeping his voice the same volume as before (Suddenly dropping into a whisper was a brilliant way of saying 'I'm up to something fishy')

"Yup." Yang said. Qrow let a small smile break onto his face, before returning to his normal expression.

"Okay then, give me a second." Qrow walked away from Yang to his till, pulling out a credit stick. "That's him over there." He explained, pointing towards a man sitting in the corner of the bar.

"Dude in the white flight suit?" Yang asked, looking at the crowd near where Qrow was pointing.

"Yup, that's him with the black flak vest." Qrow confirmed. "Just tell him I found that shipping route and here's his advance, he'll get it."

Yang nodded and approached the pilot, who looked up at her. Before he could speak Yang deposited the credit stick in his hand.

"Qrows ready for the new shipping route." She explained, gesturing to her uncle who'd gone back to serving drinks.

The pilot looked down at the stick for a second before nodding. "Okay then, be ready at four am."

"You doing another one of your dodgy runs?" The Rodian sitting next to him asked.

"Yup, one of the more stupid one's I've agreed to." The Pilot admitted, taking a deep swig before looking around at the rest of the table. "And… ah screw it. Next rounds on me given I might never see you pricks again!"

The group at the table cheered as Yang walked back to her uncle.

"Well, that went well." She said offhandedly, glancing over at the pilot.

"Yeah, and you heard him, go let the others know; Kodama space port landing strip five. Make sure your there before four am."

"Sure, soon as Ruby's back with Nora." Yang said before heading out the bar; neither of them noticing the man at the back, his eyes hard as he quietly muttered under his breath, relaying what he'd just heard into his hidden microphone.

…

"We're really going!?" Nora cried, her eyes going wide, a grin spreading across her face as she looked at Ruby.

"Yup, we just need you to get your stuff and…" Ruby trailed off as Nora stood up, a pink rucksack pulled onto her back and an equally pink crate being dragged behind her.

"Well I'm glad one of us was prepared." Weiss said, scowling at no one in particular.

"I've been sorting through my stock for days!" Nora explained as she walked towards her door. "Had to decide what I was going to bring with me, couldn't bring everything obviously."

Weiss looked confused at Ruby who smiled and explained:

"You'd need a supercarrier to carry every weapon Nora owns." Ruby said as she stuck her head out Nora's door, confirming no one was around. "we're clear."

"Great, lets go." Weiss said, darting out of the grotty underground room Nora lived in. Stepping out of the hidden panel into the old subway system. Which was even less pleasant than the last time Weiss had been through it. And given she'd been running for her life with the Sith on her tail relying on who she'd thought at the time was an idiot (jury was out on her current opinion) that was saying something.

The trio moved throughout the tunnels carefully approaching the parked Crescent Rose, about to enter when.

"Hey, civilians." The trio jolted, spinning around and seeing Sith Patrol approaching them.

"Why hello officers!" Nora said, quickly dropping the crate into Crescent Rose as she looked over at the Sith. "Such a surprise to see you down here."

"We got word that something fishy might be going on." One of the troops explained. "And that is a suspicious crate you just got rid of."

"What? You think with the rain out I'm going to rely on this to carry my stuff?" Nora asked, holding up her bag, a look of shock on her face. "You've got to know what the rain does to anything, I mean look at your armor; bet you its only been worn a few times."

The troopers looked down at their tarnished suits.

"Okay you have a point, and I suppose the three of you don't look that shifty." The other trooper said. "Although we might still need to bring you in for questioning."

"Okay Trudge!" Nora said happily, grinning as she walked over to the Sith trooper, who suddenly tensed. "While we're there I guess we can ask about that fancy rifle of yours."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about." 'Trudge' said, looking around awkwardly.

"Really, because it looks like you've had the fuel replaced and had a non licenced suppressor fitted."

"Your talking nonsense." Trudge said, glaring at Nora who grinned evilly at the Sith, causing him to take a step back.

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure that gun is exactly how I described and I'm pretty sure the Sith aren't very tolerant of illegal modding, especially for on duty troopers." Nora explained before climbing into Crescent rose with a grin on her face.

Weiss was quick to follow Nora while Ruby shrugged apologetically before clambering into the speeder.

"Erm… good luck with the rest of your patrol?" Ruby said with a shrug, before driving off.

The troopers watched them go.

" _Patrol 03, are they marked?"_

"Yes Sir, the tracker was placed." Trudge said, looking over at his partner.

"Good, now let's hope they lead us to those padawans, lord knows Taurus will have all our heads if we fail."

…

"The Pilot sorted?" Blake asked, once again riding on Bumblebee, her arms wrapped around Yang as she moved the bike along the various roads, Far slower than she normally did due to the bags strapped to either side weighing it down.

"Yup!" Yang called back cheerfully. "We'll have you off this moon soon!"

"It will be nice to not have to worry about getting burnt whenever it rains." Weiss said from Crescent Rose's passenger seat, forced into a very undignified sitting position due to having three bags sharing the spot with her.

"I just want to see Ren!" Nora said happily, leaning back and stretching with one arm… While keeping the other firmly held onto part of Crescent Rose's roll cage as she sat on the back of the speeder, her legs hanging free, watching her weapons crate as it floated behind the speeder.

"I still don't get how you two are friends." Weiss commented.

"Why not? I'm great!" Nora said, grinning cheerfully as she looked over at Weiss.

"He just seemed like someone who liked to keep to himself." Blake explained.

"Well he likes me!" Nora responded cheerfully. "Before the Sith invaded we talked basically every day."

"But how did you two meet?" Weiss asked. "Ren's been in the order since he was ten."

"And he met me when he was seven." Nora explained as Ruby guided her speeder around the corner and approached Kodama space ports fifth landing strip. "Saved my life actually…"

Before anyone could ask for the details Qrow called out:

"Good, you kids are here." He said as he leant back against their pilots ship.

Ruby looked over at the ship, she loved seeing other people's vehicles and this one was a interesting. It was an old cargo freighter, a dull brown exterior showing the years of abuse it had been put through, laser scorch marks dotting the side and several panels missing. But these were what endeared Ruby to the ship. Sure, it looked bad but internally she could tell it had been cared for miles better than half the ships in the Sith fleet.

The engines she could see on the side of the ships were some of the best ever to traverse the galaxy, able to get far more power for the fuel put in. Also while the body work was incomplete she noted the main missing segments were for area's that reliably broke down on ships (form what she'd been able to find out anyway)

This was a ship built to work long hard and reliably and Ruby loved it.

"We're flying in this?" Weiss asked incredulously, looking at the ship, shock on her face.

"Hey what did you except an Atlas Cruiser?" The pilot asked, walking down the ramp; the frown evident on his face despite his helmet covering half of it.

"I, I mean…" Weiss began to stutter before Blake walked past her, having dismounted from Yang's bike and said:

"Weiss, stop talking." The Black haired girl explained (even if it was still dyed Blond) As she walked up the ramp, looking at the pilot before looking around the cargo hold, taking a note of some of the less common features, for example the loosened floor panels (Presumably for hiding things below the floor) a section of a water pipe on the wall connected to a tap and several dusty crates of long life food packs (not pleasant but enough to keep people alive on long journeys, common among most space travellers)

"It's not going to be the most comfortable ride." Their pilot explained. "But I'll get you to Beacon, provided we can get off this planet."

"We've got the codes." Qrow said, nodding to Blake who pulled the chip free, handing it over to the pilot. He turned the device around in his hands before nodding.

"Well I trust you to get it right, mostly because we're all dead if you're wrong." The Pilot said. "I'm going to prep the ship for launch, get comfortable but stay in here; it's the only bit of the ship that'll hide your presence when the Sith start scanning." He finished explaining before walking to the end of the cargo hold, climbing up the ladder and pushing the hatch open, disappearing into the main bulk of the ship.

The group nodded and set about performing various acts. Ruby and Yang strapping their vehicles down, Blake settling down on top of one of their pilot's crates and pulling a book out of her bag before resting it behind her head. Weiss sitting down and intently studying the instructions on the back of a box of hair dye remover as she ran her hand through her currently brown hair, scowling up at her fringe like she meant it great personal harm. Qrow just leant against a box and began slug something from his flask.

They'd done it, in a few minutes they'd be off Patch and, on their way, to Beacon, everything was going to be fine. Well, they thought that was the case.

It wasn't.

…

"Is something wrong?" Ruby asked, looking at the pilot as he came back down the ladder, opting to slide down by holding the side's instead of climbing.

"Somethings wrong with the main startup sequence." He explained as he removed a plastic panel off the wall, pulling free a handle. He pulled it back and a main power core slid out. "Something's wrong with the main power converter."

"What's wrong with it?" Weiss asked, looking up from the hair dye remover box to study the power core.

"It's missing." He said, his face going grim as he studied the core. Before stopping to look around at the floor.

"They knew we were coming…" Qrow muttered, his hand suddenly jumping to the saber on his belt.

Everyone's eyes went wide as they looked over at the closed ramp, their hearts collectively skipping a beat as a voice rang out from outside:

"Attention! You are all under arrest, you have one minute to exit the Freighter with your hands up or we will destroy the ship!"

"Poodoo." Qrow mutter as he freed the saber from his belt, igniting the blade.

"How did they find us!" Weiss cried out, looking around at the group. "Did you tell them!" She cried, pointing wildly at Nora.

"Yes Master Jedi, she sold us out then got herself pinned with the rest of us." Yang scowled darkly.

"They tracked you guys obviously." Blake said dully as she freed Gambol Shroud from her belt.

"Well what do we do? We aren't flying without a proper power coupler!" The Pilot called out. "And unless one of you happens to have a 4-90-S power linker on you…" He trailed off as Ruby ran across to Crescent Rose with a spanner in hand, ripping a hatch up near the engines and freeing a cable.

"Why do you have this…?" He asked as he looked at the 4-90-s power linker in her hands.

"Better power in the straights, what are we going to do about the Sith!?" Ruby asked, looking at Qrow who looked at the Pilot.

"Get the shields up!" Qrow yelled. "Ruby get the engines working again!"

"On it!" Ruby and the Pilot said as they sprinted to their various tasks.

"What do we do?" Weiss called, her eyes wide as she looked around, panic in her face.

"Give me a second!" Qrow called, closing his eyes and letting everything go, seeing the ship in more details, what was off, what wasn't meant to be here? Had the Sith done anything to the ship?

"Help me get this open!" Qrow called as he ran over to remove one of the lose floor panels. Weiss was nearest and thus helped Qrow shift the plate. Inside was…

"A BOMB!" Weiss cried as she looked at the devise nestled in the floor plate.

"Let me see!" Blake called, running over to look down at the devise. Her heart stopped, she'd seen this type of bomb before. A smooth black metal cylinder, no visible seams, the only major outcrop being a metal bulge on the side with four wires running into the cylinder.

 _He's still here._

"Can you disarm it?" Qrow asked, looking at Blake who looked unsure.

"Yes I think I can…" Blake began to say, before the ship shook violently.

"Think we ran out our minute." Yang said darkly.

"I think you're right." Qrow answered. "Ruby how you doing with that coupler!"

"Need more time!" Ruby called back. She was not in a good position to be doing this, the old couplers clearly hadn't been removed properly and she was having to bash the linkers back into shape before she could attach hers.

"Hey I have an idea!" Nora cried, having hauled the lid off her crate of weapons, reaching in and pulling a metal sphere out. "How about we give them some of our explosives?"

Yang's face lit up, pure joy ran across her face as she looked down at the metal ball.

"Nora, are those thermal detonators?" Yang asked, her face hurting from the massive smile.

"Yes, yes they are." Nora answered, an equally large grin on her face.

…

So, they set out to work. Ruby got the engine working, the pilot kept his ships shield up and activated his ships auto turrets. Black worked on the bomb, disarming it while Nora, Yang, Weiss and Qrow worked on giving the Sith their present, lowering the main landing ramp just enough that they could start throwing detonators out the hatch.

The explosions drowned basically all the other noise out as the large bangs echoed out.

"I got the coupler installed!" Ruby called as another detonator went off.

"Okay seal the ramp and get ready to fly!" The Pilot yelled from the cockpit.

"You heard the man!" Qrow called, trying to hide just how much fun he'd had with throwing the detonators around. "let's get off this…"

Qrow trailed off, he was looking at the ramp, his eyes, well they were, different, larger and not focusing on anything properly as he looked directly at the ramp.

"This is bad." He muttered.

"What's going on…" Weiss began to ask before she got an answer, a shaft of red energy tore through the closed ramp, the red beam of a Sith lightsaber.

"No…" Blake cried, her eyes wide as she looked at the familiar Saber blade.

"Who is it!" Nora cried, watching as the Saber cut into the door, eventually cutting a hole out of the door, big enough for the saber user to stand through.

Ruby and Weiss had seen this man before, but Blake… Blake was backing up, scrambling across the ground, feet in her eyes as she looked at the man.

He was tall, dressed in the same black robes he'd been wearing the last time Blake saw him, the damaged armor visible beneath the robes… and the mask. The white face mask covering his eyes, it's red markings more faded than Blake had seen them before.

"No…" She gasped, eyes wide as she looked at the man in front of her.

"Hello Blake." Darth Taurus said as he entered their ship as he looked at everyone on the ship aiming his Saber directly at Qrow. "This is the company you're keeping?"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: My Darling

Qrow was the first to jump into the fight, covering the distance between him and the Sith in less than a second, reaching down into his belt mid jump, grabbing a hold of a hilt belonging to a Vibroblade with his right hand, ripping the knife free he brought it up to Darth Taurus' lightsaber.

It was a silly look, to see the red blade of a Sith lightsaber being blocked by a dagger no more than a foot long; but it worked and the Darth looked surprised.

"I take it you're the Jedi master on this planet?" Taurus asked, looking at his opponent; what little of his face you could see seamed board as he made no effort to move the weapon, content to let Qrow try and move it.

"Can't say I ever made it that far." Qrow admitted before grinning, his left hand freeing his second Vibroblade, slashing at the Sith across the chest. The good news was that the Sith did jump back, that bad news was he was unharmed. His armor was too tough to be penetrated by a Vibroblade.

"Did your new master really ask you to recruit a wash out?" Taurus asked, looking over at Blake whose ears had flattened, forcing her bow back as she felt around behind her; why hadn't she kept Gambol Shroud on her belt!?

"Hey, I quit; not the same thing as washing out." Qrow responded, annoyance clear in his tone as he looked over at the Sith, who was holding his Saber out, pointing it directly at Qrow as he looked around the ship.

"Yes, I suppose so." Taurus said, clearly not giving Qrow his full attention as he returned his attention to Blake. "Really darling? These are the kind of people your new side relies on?"

"They're better than you ever were." The Faunus girl responded, trying to keep her voice steady as she stared the Sith down, still fumbling for her lightsaber.

"You think their might could ever match the might of the Sith Empire? Even after seeing both? You gave us up for this?" The Darth asked, disgust in his voice as he looked down at the cat girl.

"Blake what is he talking about!" Weiss hissed, routed to the spot. She had her hand wrapped around Myrtenaster's hilt, ready to jump in as soon as she had a proper attack plan.

"Oh, so you haven't told them? Well it's good to see my Padawan remembered some of her lessons." The Darth said, his grin shaking Blake as Weiss looked at her in shock. "Honestly you couldn't tell? Did the corrupted eyes not tip you off?"

"Blake, he's lying, you're not, I mean, you couldn't be…" Weiss began to ask, desperate to hear her ally deny the Sith's accusations.

She got her answer as Blake looked down at the ground.

"Don't worry Blake, as soon as I deal with these people, I'll get you back where you belong, my master can be… persuasive."

It was that line that set Ruby off, she'd been hunkering down by the ship's engine, but now she had to move, the fear in Blake's eyes; her shuddering body language, pulled back ears… She was terrified, and Ruby was not going to let that stand. Blake was on their side, she knew it. She wasn't sure how she knew it admittedly; but she did. Blake wasn't a bad person and this Sith was not hurting her!

She ran forward, accelerating faster than anyone should have been able to, her Mother's Saber in hand she ignited the silver blade and swung it as hard as she could at the Sith.

Her plan sort of worked, Taurus was forced to bring his Saber around to block Ruby's, so at least his attention was off her uncle. Unfortunately, Ruby had been going for a death strike, so this wasn't perfect.

Thankfully Ruby soon had backup and wasn't forced to fight the Darth off on her own, Qrow had lunged with his Vibroblades, trying to bring them down into Darth Taurus' back; unfortunately discovering that his back was as heavily armored as chest had been. Her second bit of help had come from Yang, freeing her blaster and taking a shot at the Sith… only to have it bounce off his chest plate after burning a hole in his robe.

"Interesting." The Darth muttered before suddenly forcing all his strength into swinging his red saber around, clashing so fiercely with Ruby's saber that she was sent flying into the wall before he drove an elbow into Qrow's Jaw.

"Gah!" Ruby cried as she fell to the ground, her mother's saber deactivating and rolling out of her grip. Quickly she sprinted across the ground towards the rolling cylinder.

"Pathetic." Taurus said, rising his saber to end the silver eyed girl… before being reminded that an elbow to the jaw was not a permanent way of taking a combatant out.

Qrow was back on his feet and had thrown one of his blades, the Darth dodged it, but this was why Qrow carried two blades; driving the second into the Sith's shoulder. His blade found its mark and sank into the flesh between the Darth's chestplate and shoulder armor.

"ARGH!" The Sith cried out as he staggered forwards; ripping the blade out of his shoulder. He was done playing around, these Jedi were done.

He ran at the Schnee girl, wishing the Force would come to him to help guide his fight, but it wasn't; not that it mattered, this white haired bitch was never going to overpower him.

Weiss' saber made contact, just stopping the opposing weapon from touching her. She glowered at the Sith before lashing out, only to have it blocked again.

"Blake help her!" Yang yelled, open firing with her blaster as she looked at the Cat Faunus, she was routed to the spot unable to move properly, her sweaty fingers unable to grasp her weapon as she struggled to grab it.

It wasn't that Blake didn't want to help Weiss, it was the exact opposite, she desperately wanted to take Gambol shroud, she wanted to fight back, she had to, but she couldn't change the fact she was terrified of the Sith in front of her, her old master… she had to fight back but she couldn't! She just couldn't move.

"Hey!" Qrow yelled out, charging forwards, only to have the Sith pivot around on his foot, slashing up with his Saber. Nothing short of luck saved Qrow's life; without the force to act as a guide the Sith had gotten the timing on the swing wrong, he'd slashed too early, only enough to graze the former Jedi on the chest and not deep enough to do any serious damage.

That being said light damage with a Lightsaber was still excruciating and Qrow fell to the ground as his chest was burnt, crying out as he fell over.

But this move had cost the Darth, while he did have one combatant out of the fight he was vulnerable to the other two as Ruby had retrieved her mother's saber and was helping Weiss. Each of them attacking from either side and striking as hard as they could, the Sith turning around to counter each attempted slash.

"Blake Please!" Ruby yelled and Blake blinked, for a second she was almost able to grab her saber, but then Adam's mask came back into view as he reflected Ruby's saber and Blake stopped again.

 _Come on move! Please move! Come on!_

But she couldn't, and it was getting worse for Ruby and Weiss. They were getting overpowered by the Older combatant, Adam Taurus had made a name for himself in the Sith with his saber combat, the Force wasn't very strong with him but his raw strength and skill with a sword more than made up for his deficiency.

Weiss was a well-trained fighter and Ruby clearly had some idea what she was doing but Adam was a master, easily enough to hold his own. Yang couldn't get a clean shot without risking hitting her sister or Weiss.

Lucky then that Nora had brought more than just explosives with her, as the Sith master suddenly lost all vision as a smoke grenade exploded at his feet.

The small capsule exploded, flooding the cargo hold with white gas, harmless to breath in but completely ruining anyone's chances of seeing anything an inch beyond their faces.

Everyone took their chance to move to a different position, Yang darted over to a better spot for shooting at the Sith, Nora staying hidden; her hand on her blasters hilt, ready to draw it as soon as she could see again.

The Saber users were mostly where they had been, only taking time to jump back and adjust their stances.

The glowing blades were the first thing that became visible to the group, their brilliant blades shining out of the grey fog. Taurus was getting ready to strike as two blasts launched at her. Nora and Yang had taken their shots.

Yang had shot at the Darth's head and come insanely close to killing him, bad luck had meant her shot had just reflected off the corner of his mask. Nora had not been so unlucky. Her gun was one of her Magnhild mod's and had torn through the Sith's armor, burning a hole in his arm.

Unfortunately for everyone on board it was not the arm he was holding the saber in, Adam screamed out in pain and lashed out, he knew where Yang's shot had come from and while he might not have the Force on his side, his anger still drove him. He sprang forward, dragging his saber along the ships ground and burning a red hot groove into the ships floor as he ran at Yang.

The smoke grenade was failing now, its smoke dissipating and it let everyone see what was happening as the Sith brought his blade up in one dramatic strike. Yang tried to get out of the way, she tried as hard as she could, jumping to the right as soon as she saw what was happening. Her quick reflex's saved her life. They did not save all of her.

The Saber tore through the Mandalorian as if she was wearing nothing, tearing through the soft flesh like a knife through butter. Yang screamed as the red hot blade sank into her, her nerves screaming as her limb was severed, she lost focus half jump, crashing down to the ground, curled up and clutching at her stump with her left arm.

The Darth looked down at his target, the Mandalorian sure was determined he'd give her that. He looked around, focusing on the other saber users, the redhead had dropped her saber, shock in her silver eyes as she looked down at the blond. The Schnee was similarly shocked (Although she hadn't dropped her weapon, she must be the smart one)

"Blake, why do you make me do this?" he asked, raiding his saber up high, cruel smile on his face as he looked down at the blond. It would only be the decent thing to put the fool out of her misery.

…

Nora had taken her shot and not looked back, snatching the component out of her crate and shifting as fast as she could. running to the ladder and scaling it into the cockpit as fast as she could, she stuck her head up into the cockpit, the Pilot looked at her in shock as she hauled her body through.

"We need to get off this planet!" She cried madly, as she gestured to the outside view.

"The Sith knew you were coming, they're going to have my ship's code!" The Pilot shot back.

"Two things, one: there's no way the Sith are going to let you live given you tried to help smuggle two Padawans off planet, and secondly I've thought of that!" Nora said, showing him the part she'd grabbed.

"Where did you get that!?" The Pilot cried, looking at the part as Nora pulled a part of the wall off, her guess about where the ship ID had been stored being correct as she wired the randomizer into the ships core.

"It's a long story involving a Whomp Rat breeding den and a drunk swoopbike race." Nora said as she returned the panel to its proper place.

"If we live through this I'd like to know the whole story!" the Pilot responded as he keyed in the launching sequence as his ship began to rise. Violently throwing Adam to the side as he took off.

"You!" The Pilot yelled out, pointing towards the co pilot seat. "Get the weapons running, third panel with the touch pad, they've still got back up out on the runway!"

"On it!" Nora called as she leapt into her seat, grinning with childish glee as she expertly turned on the ships weapons, focusing on the unfortunate troopers outside the ship.

…

Blake's eye's struggled to see through the grenade's smoke, she saw the two shots firing, realising one of them was from Yang she gasped as Adam ran towards the shooter, her arm being severed in the effortless way Adam always butchered people.

Adam, she hated him so much, the man he'd become; how had she fallen for everything he'd said? how had she been stupid enough to believe him? Why had she done all the things she'd done! And why couldn't she fight him!

She was screaming at herself on the floor, she wanted to get up, she wanted to fight him.

"Blake, why do you make me do this?" Adam asked, taunting her as he went to kill Yang, the way he'd already killed so many...

This was when Blake felt her fingers wrap around Gambol Shroud, this was when she could move. It wasn't graceful, it wasn't clever. She was scared out of her mind, her heart beating faster than it ever had before. She'd escaped Adam to stop hurting people, she'd ran away to try and do better.

Then he'd come back, she hadn't moved and look what had happened, Yang had lost her arm but she wasn't losing anything else.

"ADAM!" She screamed, bringing both sabers swinging around, bringing them crashing into Adam's blade.

The Darth was surprised as the purple weapons collided with his, so much so that Blake was able to drive him back a few steps, making sure Yang was out of range.

Blake's eyes were wide as Adam recovered, staring at her, his mask conveying all the feeling it normally did. Cruel hate as he forced her back, gaining ground on her.

"Blake, this isn't you; stand down." He said as he put his other hand on his saber, gently applying more force against Blake, making it harder to hold the weapon in place.

"I won't stand down." Blake hissed, finding the words came out clearly, despite how terrified she was, she knew she was shaking; her eyes contracted as her former master loomed over her, her ears were pulled back as she began to feel his presence again, his smell, the way he moved. All of it was burned into his mind and she could barely fight back against it. Her grip on her sabers was getting weaker. She knew she should have moved, she knew she should keep fighting, she wanted to! But her grip was failing and…

"Move 12!" Weiss cried, leaping forwards as Blake narrowly ducked as Weiss slashed her saber across, slashing the Sith's mask in horizontally… and a decent part of his face.

Adam cried out as he staggered back, his saber dropping to the ground as he brought his hands up to his face.

"Get the door open!" Weiss yelled as Blake nodded and sprinted towards the controls, she knew where this was going and the further away from Adam she was the better! Her heart still racing she ran towards the control panel and pulled it open, letting the landing ramp begin to lower again.

…

Ruby hadn't seen any of this, she'd been over at Yang, looking down at her sister, her eyes wide as she looked at her injury.

The wound wasn't bleeding, Lightsaber's were too hot, the wound was charred, black skin still burning. It was horrible to see what was left and Ruby felt… well she didn't know what she felt. Anger at the Sith, fear for her sister, resentment that she hadn't been able to do anything, terror for Blake and Weiss, still fighting. She had to do something!

That was a day that none present to see it would ever forget, even the Sith lord it was targeted at would never forget it.

The Force users suddenly felt the Force return, no longer being pushed away it hung in the air before shooting at Ruby, her hair starting to rise as she looked up, her face still tear stained as she turned to face the Sith.

Then she let out a scream like nothing anyone present had heard before, every emotion poured into it she screamed, it echoed around the ship and everyone froze up, Blake staggering from the sound, her arms wrapped around her ears in a desperate attempt to drown out the noise.

But Adam, for Adam it was so much worse, he didn't just stager, he fell to the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Then Ruby opened her eyes. Energy exploded from the silver orbs. White energy flying out and exploding free from her, it flew towards Adam and his limbs began to shatter, breaking apart he tried to move, but he couldn't.

 _What is this girl doing to me! Why can't I move!_

No one knew how long Ruby would have kept going, but they didn't need to, at that point the Pilot forced the ship up into the air, flying straight up into the sky.

Weiss and Blake dived at the others, grabbing a hold of Ruby and Yang respectively to stop them falling out (Qrow was safe due to being stuck behind one of the Pilot's crates)

Darth Taurus… he had no one to grab him. Or even limbs to grab, his body slid out and fell out of the open hatch. His torso falling out of the ship as they flew towards the sky, leaving Patch behind them.

…

"You really think your friend stands a chance?" The Zabrak Padawan sitting next Cinder asked. Cinder responded with a simple nod.

"Really? You think a non force user could defeat three Sith apprentices with years of combat experience under their belt?" The Zabrak snorted, looking over at Mercury as he stood in the centre of a triangular ring, carelessly twirling his stolen Vibroblade around as he looked at his three opponents, all of them ready in fighting stances with their own blades held high over there head (Lightsabers were too dangerous for training matches) and staring down their cocky opponent from every corner of the ring.

"What is your name?" Cinder asked in a board drawl, glancing over at the Zabrak, who looked surprised but still answered with confidence.

"Sen Kellarov." He responded simply, looking at the woman next to him, who nodded.

"Well Sen, who taught those three to fight?" She asked, looking down at Mercury's opponents.

"Master Tul-vark" Sen answered, he could tell Cinder was going somewhere.

"How long has he been teaching them?" Cinder asked, boredom still evident in her voice.

"Five years of classes, they've had more time with other masters before that point and forgive me for this." Sen said, fixing his eyes on Cinder before asking: "But why are you asking? I can tell you want to tell me something, so please, I'd like to know: What makes you think your friend can take three opponents trained by one of our best saber masters?"

"Because Mercury was trained by Marcus Black for fourteen years before he killed him in a duel." Cinder said, enjoying the look of shock on Sen's face. Marcus Black had a reputation, if you needed someone taken out, Marcus Black could do it, his long history had Several Jedi and Sith masters on it, as well as some of the Galaxies most notorious criminal overlords on it. Anyone who could take that man on and win…

"I am suddenly far more invested in seeing how this fight goes." Sen said, a smile creeping onto his face as the fight begun.

All three of Mercury's opponents ran at him, blades flowing long across the ground. The idea being to hit Mercury in the legs, he couldn't stop three attacks from three separate directions.

The problem with this strategy was assuming Mercury was going to stand still and let himself get overrun. Mercury grinned, sprinting towards one of his opponents and swinging his sword, catching it on his opponent's blade before forcing him forwards. Oddly though the other two Sith weren't helping their ally, they instead had stopped and started swinging at… well nothing.

The audience was intrigued, staring at the pair fighting thin air… so much so that it was a shock when the Sith Mercury was actually fighting got flung across the room, crashing out of the ring and crumpling against the wall.

This shocked the other two Padawans, who blinked under their hoods before Mercury lunged at them, stabbing forwards with a powerful strike that forced one of them to dodge. If the other one thought this was going to give him a chance to fight back he was wrong. He did try and make a swing but it was intercepted by one of Mercury's legs sticking up and letting the Vibroblade sink into his boots, clashing on his metal foot.

The rest of the fight didn't last long, Mercury wrenched with his foot hard, the blade stuck in his foot was ripped it free of its owner's hand, as he span around and drove the hilt into the other Sith's guts. He dropped his saber and fell to the ground, Mercury smirked as his last disarmed opponent jumped out of the ring.

"This match is over." Their instructor said, an unusually tall human by the name of Hazel. "Mercury Black, good work; you applied excellent technique to the match." He then turned to look at the losers. "Now, you three; why did you lose?"

"Mercury is a superb combatant." The first to fall answered, still not able to process just how fast he had swung his saber.

"That is correct; Mercury is a far superior fighter than anyone in this room." Hazel nodded, causing a murmur among the crowd before he turned to look at the other two. "You two, what went wrong for you?"

"I was unprepared, I didn't know about his legs; if I was I wouldn't have gone for the strike I did." The Sith who'd jumped out of the room muttered, looking down at the floor.

"No that isn't what you did wrong." Hazel said, looking over at the Padawan. "That move would have crippled most opponents, even if it didn't finish them they'd be on the floor and vulnerable. Mercury would have fallen if you'd been using an actual light saber not just a Vibroblade."

"it's because he ran!" The Padawan who'd taken a Vibroblade hilt to the guts responded, staring darkly at the deserter.

"No that was not a mistake either." Hazel said flatly, giving his attention to the most recent speaker. (Who suddenly realised just how tall their current combat instructor was) "A Sith's goal is to get stronger, you can't do that if you're dead. Retreating because you can't win is not a mistake. It's a smart tactical decision."

"Then what did I do wrong?" the deserter asked, looking at Hazel who pointed to the front row of the arena's stands.

"You assumed your opponent would respect the rules of the fight in an unfair situation." He said, his finger settling on Emerald who looked shocked as she looked back at her instructor.

"Miss Sustrai is a formidable force user, strong enough to perform two mind tricks at once." Hazel explained.

"But… the fight… it was just meant to be…" The Padawan who'd taken a hilt to her gut began to say before he backed down at the look on Hazel's face.

"There is no such thing as a fair fight." Hazel said simply. "Take that as your lesson for today, in a proper fight no opponent is going to play fair so there is no reason you should. You're all dismissed."

All the other Padawan's filed out of the room aside from Cinder, Mercury, Emerald and Sen, who looked over at Cinder, noticed her smug grin and asked: "Did you give them the idea to do that?"

"I believe it was my idea yes." Cinder said offhandedly, looking down at her hand as she examined her nails. "Though I thought of it a while ago so I might be wrong."

"Huh. Interesting. Well if we ever have an assignment based on strategy I know who to get on my side." Sen said before rising to his feet and leaving the room, allowing Cinder to walk down to her compatriots, they were about to leave together when Hazel approached them, specifically looking at Cinder.

"You have a question for me." He said, looking down at Cinder who nodded; still weirded out by the way Force users could so easily tell what she was thinking (mostly because it was an ability she hadn't acquired yet)

"Yes, why were you so nice to them? None of the other masters here act that way." Cinder asked, careful to phrase it as neutrally as possible, she didn't want to anger her teacher (her saber combat only fell into acceptable territory currently)

Hazel stood there for a second, thinking before he answered.

"Did you know the Sith order has fallen more than the Jedi order?" He asked, looking at his students who shook their heads. "Well I'm not surprised, it's not something the masters like to brag about. Which is a shame because if we talked about this problem more often we might avoid dumb mistakes."

"What do you mean?" Emerald asked, looking at her instructor with confusion.

"If you forget your mistakes you are likely to make them again." He explained. "And unfortunately, we Sith have a bad tendency for hurting our own order."

"How? Surely no Sith wants the order to fall." Mercury pointed out, his arms folded as he looked at their instructor.

"That would be correct, but you'd be amazed what can happen. For example; would you kill a subordinate for a mistake?" Hazel asked, looking at the Padawan's as they shook their heads. "What if they ruined a major plan, what if they got others killed due to their incompetence? Would you kill them then?"

Mercury and Emerald both shook their heads instantly, but Cinder hesitated and Hazel picked up on it.

"How would you justify that action?" He asked, looking at the black haired girl who hesitated before saying:

"Well, they're a problem for the order, what right do they have to be in it if they're going to ruin major plans?" Cinder eventually said as Hazel nodded.

"Okay, that makes sense when you say it like that. But think about this; What have you objectively achieved by killing this hypothetical subordinate?" He asked, looking expectantly at Cinder.

"I just said what…" Cinder began to say before Hazel cut her off.

"That's not what I asked, I want to know what you've actually done in purely objective terms." Hazel explained.

"I would have killed someone." Cinder said slowly, looking at her instructor who nodded.

"To be precise, you've killed a member of your own side and weakened the order over all." Hazel said simply. "The Jedi would never do this."

"But the Jedi are weaker than the Sith." Mercury pointed out and Hazel nodded.

"Yes, their force techniques are less powerful, their sabers weaker and they're less willing to kill, but they will have loyalty on their side, allies that want to stick with them. Fear is powerful but potential ally's slip between your fingers, and where do they go? What happens when the weak band together? The answer is simple; they get stronger, they come back and learn things they didn't know before. They become stronger. By killing one of your own you've denied them that chance. Punish them by all means, never let them forget their mistakes. But make them learn from them, make them stronger and our order will stand. It's how the Jedi have managed to defeat us in the past; they end up stronger than us because they cultivate everyone. Never make the mistake of believing people can't change, it will get you hurt."

At that Hazel turned and left the room, leaving the three Padawans standing in the room.

"Well, that was intense." Mercury said as the door closed.

"Yes, it was." Cinder said, heading to the door on the opposite side of the room. "I need to get over to Master Salem, She believes I've learned enough to try and open the Holocron today."

"Good luck!" Emerald called as she went to leave the room.

"Stay together you two. I can't imagine your opponents will be happy with you two after that fight. You should know what you're doing against them."

Emerald and Mercury nodded before leaving out the other door.

"Think she'll be okay?" Emerald asked, looking over her shoulder at the door Cinder had just departed through.

"She'll be fine." Mercury said offhandedly as he looked at the apprentice blocking the way. "Anyway, looks like I've got to beat this idiot again."

"Have fun." Emerald said dully as she leant against the wall, mildly interested in watching the fight, trying to keep her mind of Cinder as Mercury drew his blade and lunged at his opponent.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Welcome to Beacon

Gingerly Ruby opened her eyes a crack before closing them almost instantly. It hurt, it was too bright out to use her eyes. Where was she? Somewhere around a sun maybe? Wait why would the ship have a window pointing at that?

Without being able to see Ruby decided to try and figure out where she was without looking. She stuck her arms out, felling cold glass and water around her. well that shot the sun theory in the back. Nothing was cold near a sun.

Wait she was wet? Wait, what was this thing on her face?

 _A breather mask? Wait, wet… glass tube… I'm in a Bacta tank!_

That made sense! She'd been injured fighting the Sith and was now recovering from… something. She had been hurt but by what? The Sith hadn't gotten any major hits in as far as she could remember so why…?

Realising she wasn't going to find out by staying in the tank she kicked herself up and felt around blindly with her hands until she found the rim of the tank. Glad she was recovering in an open top tank Ruby hauled herself out.

"Ruby!" Yang called out, Ruby heard boots scramble across the floor as Yang ran towards the tank, gripping Ruby by the wrists and helping her out of the tank. Ruby was glad for the help, but something felt wrong about her Sisters grip something was wrong with her right hand…

"Yang your arm!" Ruby gasped, feeling the metal digits. A replacement for what that Sith…

"Sod my arm!" Yang gasped, pulling her rather damp sister into a tight hug. "Sis do you have any idea what you did!?"

"I'd imagine not Miss Xao Long." A new voice said. Ruby looked in her direction, well tried to. She suspected she hadn't gotten it entirely right given Yang placed her left hand on her head and adjusted the direction slightly.

"Who are you?" Ruby asked nervously, taking a few steps back and bumping into the tank.

"My name is Locasta, I'm the Head Nurse of Beacon academy." The voice explained kindly as the talker walked towards her. Ruby wished she could see this woman, but she could do the next best thing.

"Hello, my names Ruby, and well… I can't see. What's…" Ruby began before the nurse cut her off.

"Your eyes will be fine. You just put them under too much stress with what you did. The good news is you're fine otherwise." Locasta explained as she she walked past Ruby. Presumably working with the Bacta tanks control panel to see what it was saying about Ruby before she'd left.

"And Yang?" Ruby asked, the silence giving her all the answers she needed. "Yang… your arm…"

"It's… fine." Yang eventually said.

"Miss Xao long it's your arm. It is a big deal." Locasta said dully, wondering if she'd ever met a more stubborn patient. Granted it was good that Yang wasn't a weeping mess. Being active and doing stuff was better than stewing inside your own head. But the fact she didn't seem willing to even address it had been worrying her recently.

"Look it can hold a blaster so it's good enough, hell it's better at dealing with recoil. If anything this is an upgrade." Yang said in a cheery tone.

Ruby knew Yang was lying. She'd spent enough time with her sister over the years to know when she was trying to hide what she was feeling. Unfortunately, Ruby also knew there was nothing she could do, Yang wasn't going to give in while she was around but when she did, she was going to crash and crash hard.

"Well I can't make you be honest." Locasta sighed before walking over towards Ruby. "Anyway, Miss Rose, I know it must hurt but could you open your eyes for me? I know it must hurt after what you did but…"

"What? I mean… what did I do with my eyes? Why do they hurt?" Ruby asked.

"Well…" Locasta began to say until a new voice spoke from the door.

"Perhaps I should inform Miss Rose of what happened?"

The speaker was older than the nurse, probably male given the tone. Something about it made Ruby trust the speaker.

"I, yes of Course Master Ozpin." Locasta said carefully before she moved away from Ruby and began to start working.

"Thank you Locasta. Now, Miss Rose; might I ask: what is the last thing you can remember?" The voice asked (now Identified as Master Ozpin) Aware she was probably talking to a Jedi master Ruby responded carefully to avoid putting her foot in her mouth.

"Well… I remember a fight on the ship against a Sith of somekind… I don't remember much, other than Yang's arm and… urgh, something… I can't remember why the fight ended…" Ruby muttered, raising her hands to rub her eyes. "Now I'm here and I can't open my eyes, it hurts. Are the lights in here really bright or something?" Ruby asked, turning towards Ozpin who chuckled slightly before responding:

"The lighting in here is somewhat brighter than normal but it shouldn't be that bad. I take it this is the first time you've used your eyes?"

"Erm… I thought I'd been using my eyes for years." Ruby muttered. Eliciting another laugh from the Jedi Master.

"Yes I gathered that. I meant was that the first time you've consciously used them to manipulate the Force." Ozpin explained.

"I did what?" Ruby asked, trying to open her eyes again to look at the master before being forced to close them again, everything was still to bright.

"You didn't know? Strange I thought Qrow would have told you about them." Ozpin said casually before Yang spoke up.

"Hold on! My Sister did what!?" Yang blurted out. Ruby again really wished she could see what was going on because it might have helped stop her sister from doing something bad.

"That would be a 'no' then; I really need to have a word with him." Ozpin said dully before speaking again. "Anyway Miss Rose if you would follow me I can explain. Miss Xao long you are also welcome to come with us."

"Like you could stop me." Yang snorted before helping Ruby get dressed in a spare set of robes that had been laid out for her before talking Ruby's hand and guiding her through the academy. While Ruby was grateful for the assistance it did bother her that she couldn't see anything, so as they walked, she tried a few times to open her eyes, and regretted it almost every time. Her eyes seemed so sensitive to the light. Still eventually they stopped in a room and Ruby was finally able to open her eyes.

While having never been in one before Ruby could surmise this was a holo chamber of some with the rooms large circular structure and the projector rig built into the middle of the floor. The room was also dark, lit only by a few tiny blue lights on the walls. This allowed her to look around at her sister and the Jedi master.

Ozpin was clearly getting on a bit if the grey hair was anything to go by, that being said he didn't look weak, he still stood proudly and his black robes were very well maintained.

Yang on the other hand did not look so good. While she might have sounded fine when she was talking to Ruby a quick look at her face told a different story. Her eyes were puffy and while it was hard to tell in low lighting, looked suspiciously red. The worst part however was her arm, she couldn't stop moving the metallic replacement, constantly twitching and spasming. Ruby wanted to say something but got cut off as Ozpin began to speak.

"Tell me, what do you two know about the Force?" He asked, turning to look at the sisters, one of whom responded instantly.

"It didn't help the Jedi not get their ass kicked by us Madalorians." Yang smirked.

"Not the time Miss Xao Long, however if you would like to discuss the matter further than I'm sure our librarian would be more than willing to make time for you, now Ruby, what do you know about the Force?"

Ruby jolted, she'd been trying to think of a better answer than her brain had initially given her. Unfortunately, that endeavour had gone nowhere so she just gave her initial thoughts.

"Well… there's the light side and the dark side, right?" Ruby eventually put forward.

"To some extent that would be correct." Ozpin said with a kind smile. "off course peoples actions matter more than their techniques (Although I would be grateful if you didn't tell anyone else I said that) but yes, there are two sides two the force, a balance that is kept. Usually both sides are enough to look after each other; but that is not always possible, that is where people like you come in Miss Rose."

"Why?" Ruby asked, blinking as she looked at the Jedi in confusion. "What do I do?"

"You have Silver eyes." He said simply. Then (Apparently releasing neither of the two girls had understood what he'd meant) he continued. "Silver eyes are a rare trait you know, not many people are ever born with them; and those who do are usually meant for great things."

"'Meant'?" Yang snorted. "I mean, My Sister's cool but… Well what does that mean?"

"It means she is blessed with the gift of neutralising the force. When both sides get too unbalanced Silver eyed warriors are known to step in and settle the conflict. Their powers let them cut people off from the Force. That is no small feat you realise." Ozpin explained. "I believe miss Schnee and Belladonna have been experiencing this while they stayed with you, if their reports are to be believed."

"Wait… I cut them off from the force?" Ruby asked, her head tilted to the side as she looked at the Master.

"It would be more accurate to say you created a bubble around yourself where the Force wasn't. those two just happened to get caught up in it due to their close proximity." Ozpin clarified before looking over at Ruby, noticing her looking down at the ground sadly he added. "You haven't done anything wrong, your gift probably saved their life on more than one occasion."

Ruby looked up confused.

"You mean when the Sith lord ran into us during the break in? he couldn't tell they were Jedi?" Ruby asked.

"Yes." Ozpin nodded. "their connection to the Force should have made them easy to detect, however because it was you they were protected from his power.

Ruby nodded, she supposed that made sense (Even if she was still shocked to learn all of this) but one thing still didn't make sense to her.

"Then… what did she do on the ship?" Yang asked. "I mean… that was more than just a bubble."

"What did I do on the ship!" Ruby cried out, before feeling sheepish and adding: "I mean, I don't remember anything. I was just scared and I wanted him to stop… then… then he was just gone…"

"That was the full extent of what you can do." Ozpin explained. "Your eyes grant you more than just the ability to mask the force, you can control it, force it back. I believe you wanted to protect your Sister and friends enough that you set if off and struck out at your attacker. That much power through one so young with no control over it. Well it's not a shock that your eyes are feeling a bit sensitive. With proper training you could minimise these side effects. Unfortunately we don't have anyone here qualified to teach you. We used to but…"

Ruby nodded, her hand moving to where her belt used to be; grasping for a cylindrical weapon that had hung their recently.

"So, what now?" Ruby asked.

"For now, you get settled in. Your Uncle has contacted your Father and he'll be here by the end of the week." Ozpin said simply. "Your possessions have been brought over and you will be sharing a couple of rooms with two Padawans I believe you're already familiar with…" At the point the Holo chambers door slid up, letting brighter light flood in, though thankfully the pain Ruby felt wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had been. "…And I believe they are here now."

Ruby and Yang turned around to see Blake and Weiss standing in the door.

"Yang!" Blake cried, running towards the blond before stopping to look down at the metal limb. Suddenly getting awkward. While that was happening Weiss calmly walked over to Ruby. Smirking as she looked the silver eyed girl over.

"You seem to be doing better." Weiss said as Ruby nodded. "Good, because I did not want to share a room with someone who hadn't recovered properly." She said before turning around and gesturing for Ruby to follow her. "Come on, my room is this way."

Nodding Ruby followed Weiss, stopping at the door to look at Yang who looked slightly more relaxed as she talked with Blake. Waving Ruby left and followed Weiss who lead her through the Jedi temple. Pointing out locations and facilities as they went, eventually stopping in the student dorms which took up the northern point of the temple.

"And here we are, Beacons Padawan dorms." Weiss said, continuing to explain the temples history and geography to Ruby (Who suspected her guide liked the opportunity to show off) "When we have earned Knighthood, we get to move out to the larger rooms above us. My rooms just over here." She said, leading her down a corridor and stopping at room 114, gesturing for Ruby to enter.

As she stepped in Ruby couldn't help but think that this room fitted its main occupant to a T. Every wall was white, everything on the desk sat neatly ordered with near mathematical precision, every tool at her work bench cleaned so heavily they looked brand new. The beds perfectly made without a single crease on any of the sheets. Over all the room looked neat and ordered, even if the Bunk bed looked out of place with half It's frame a different colour from the other half.

"Dibs on top bunk!" Ruby blurted before she could stop herself, feeling the icy stare from Weiss. "I mean, erm… could I have the top bunk?" She tried again, watching the Padawans face turn to a smirk as her features softened.

"You may." She said simply before watching Ruby bolt off and jump onto the top bed. "You really are a Force user aren't you?"

Ruby (who had been testing the springs for comfort) stopped to look at Weiss.

"Well… I guess I am." She admitted. "… I mean, my mom was a Jedi so I suppose…"

"No, you don't understand." Weiss butted in walking over to the bed and looking up at Ruby. "You just jumped to the top of the bunk without even thinking about it, you did a force jump without even thinking didn't you?"

"Wait, that's what the Force feels like?" Ruby asked, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. "I assumed it would feel kinda… you know… Special?"

"Urgh… You have a lot to learn." Weiss groaned. "Anyway, I have a few ground rules to go over before we do anything else."

Weiss then proceeded to talk for about half an hour. Reading between the lines Ruby was able to make out: 'Don't touch my clothes, keep the noise down if I'm trying to sleep, keep the room clean, you may use my work bench but if anything is out of place when you're done I'm going to smack you'

"Anyway, it's about midday, we should go get lunch then we can go get your stuff and bring it in here." Weiss said after finishing her instructions/list of demands.

Ruby nodded and the two girls set out, exiting Weiss' room and heading off towards the canteen. As they walked Ruby took the chance to take things in without trying to process Weiss explanations (which in some ways made it easier for the silver eyed girl to take things in) Still it was interesting to look around at Beacon.

The Temple was old but had apparently been recently updated, leading to a weird mixture of smooth metal panels and old crumbling stone flashing past as you walked. The new terminals clashing with the presumably older models, shiny new consoles sitting next to ratty old tablets which had been used so much most of the paint had been worn off the buttons.

They were about halfway to the canteen when Ruby heard something, it sounded like two people fighting. Guessing it was training and eager to see Jedi training she stopped and tuck her head through the door, heading towards the sparing duo.

Surprisingly she didn't enter a room, instead she was in a stairwell, at this point Weiss noticed she wasn't behind her and started to follow her as she made her way up the staircase, pushing open the trapdoor and looking out at the roof of the building, most of which was empty aside from the two Jedi sparing.

Ruby carefully studied the two combatants. One was a red headed girl with green eyes, she stood calmly, her Lightsaber held upright, ready to block when her opponent struck. This was in implicit contrast to her opponent. A taller blond boy who's stance was… less impressive.

The Red head held her Green saber precisely, her stance perfectly set up so she could move around easily and quickly stop any attacks. Her Opponents blue saber in comparison was held awkwardly, a stance that was in theory goods for attacking but left so many openings in his defence it was almost funny. Almost.

Ruby wondered absentmindedly how he could be so far behind in comparison to his companion; there was no way she was his master, she barely looked older than Yang. Hell if she had to guess those two were the same age.

"Is she still wasting her time with him?" Weiss said suddenly, standing next to Ruby at the trapdoor, also looking out at the two fighters.

"You know them?" Ruby whispered, not wanting to be noticed by the two fighting Jedi, she got a feeling getting distracted while wielding an ignited Lightsabre would not end well.

"Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc." Weiss muttered dully, pointing to the girl and the boy respectively. "Why she wastes her time on him I don't know."

"Wastes her time?" Ruby asked. "What do you mean, is she teaching him or something?"

"Yes, for whatever reason she took it upon herself to help train the blond idiot. No idea why. He was recruited at the same time as me and trust me, he's useless; first time in a Starfighter and he filled the vase." Weiss said, her eyes displaying nothing but distain as Pyrrha made comments about Jaune's stance (mostly ways in which he could improve it)

"'Filled the vase?'" Ruby said, looking over at Weiss who explained.

"He threw up while wearing a sealed helmet." Weiss said dully. "I repeat, he is useless, just watch." She said, pointing to the two as they began to fight.

Ruby watched and… yeah, she was unimpressed by Jaunes efforts. Not that he wasn't trying… he was just bad. Ruby knew how to fight with a sword, and he was making so many mistakes. In all honesty she felt bad for Pyrrha, the girl was clearly trying to fight him properly, but he was such an easy target she wasn't doing much, it was more that she was making a single attack while explain why Jaune wasn't fighting right.

"Jaune you need to keep your stance lower." Pyrrha said as Jaune made another clumsy lunge at her which she easily side stepped "Otherwise I can do this."

She then darted forwards, bringing her Saber down on Jaunes and forcing him off his feet, sending him sprawling to the floor.

"I'm sorry." She said, her face going red as she held her hand out to help him up. Absentmindedly he reached out to take it, before looking over at Ruby and Weiss.

"Weiss!" He called out happily, hastily letting go of Pyrrha's hand he stood up and dusted himself off. "How long have you been watching?"

"Long enough." She said coldly, pushing the trapdoor up and looking down at Ruby (Who'd ducked the second Jaune looked over at her) and adding: "Come on, they don't bite."

Nodding Ruby awkwardly stepped out and looked over at the two sparing partners. She wanted to say something to break the ice, something to get the ball rolling but Weiss beat her to it, well, beat her to half of it anyway.

"So Pyrrha, was that a Revan defense you just did their, I've been trying but I'm having some difficulty with it, could you give me some pointers?" She asked, adopting a suspicoussly nicer tone than she normally had talking to people. As Pyrrha began explaining while apologising to Jaune Ruby walked over to the blond.

"Hey." She said, trying to make eye contact even as her eyes were drawn to the metal cylinder in the boys hand.

"Hey, I'm Jaune… I don't think I've seen you around before; are you new?" He asked, looking away from Weiss to focus on her.

"Erm, yeah, arrived a few days back… we were supposed to be getting some food." Ruby commented, scowling over at Weiss as she listened raptly to Pyrrha's in depth description of her techniques.

"Weiss is just like that sometimes, trust me I've known her for a few months and she never gets much better." He said shrugging.

"I guess… Hey can I see your saber?" She asked eagerly.

"Erm, sure." He said, reaching down and handing the weapon over to her.

Ruby grinned, wanting to test a theory with this weapon. Every other time she'd held a Lightsaber she had felt something coming from it. Gambol Shroud had been closed off and didn't trust her, Myrtenaster (after she'd finally convinced Weiss to part from it for a few seconds) Had been cold but got warmer the longer she'd held it. Her mom's Saber had just trusted her outright, feeling almost perfect in her hands. Guessing this was a Force thing she wanted to try it again.

"Does it have a name?" She asked as she took the weapon, noticing instantly just how heavy it was in comparison.

"Crocea Mors." Jaune said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "It was my grandfathers actually."

"You're from a family of Jedi?" Ruby asked, looking up from the Light Saber to stare at it's owner.

"Erm, yeah; we don't all become Jedi but it has happened…" He admitted.

"Well that explains the weight." Ruby muttered as she turned it over. It didn't want to be read like the others, it was a Lightsaber, it had ever right to be here! And she couldn't get anything else from it other than a slight amount of disappointment.

"Yeah, older saber's tend to have a bit of weight to them, I've been meaning to upgrade but it just feels wrong." He admitted as Ruby handed the weapon back, quickly holstering it back onto his belt.

"I know that feeling, I don't want to modify Moms saber." Ruby admitted, thinking back to the weapon and wishing she had the devise back on her belt.

"I'm sorry." Jaune said suddenly. Ruby blinked up at him, what was he apologising for?

"What do you…" Ruby began to inquire before Jaune explained himself.

"You mentioned your mom and your face just fell… given I haven't seen a Jedi around that looks like you I figured…" He began, trailing off as Ruby nodded, before she added on:

"It's fine, I miss her but; she died when I was four. I can keep going." Ruby smiled weekly while a part of her really hoped they could stop talking about this quickly so she didn't have to think about her for a while longer.

"Hey Ruby we should get on with Lunch." Weiss called.

 _Oh thank you Weiss!_

"Let's go, we can meet up with Ren and Nora when we get there." Pyrrha added helpfully.

"You know Ren?" Ruby asked as the four of them set off.

"He's my roommate." Jaune explained. "He sometimes helps me with my Force training."

"Huh." Ruby said as she headed off to enjoy lunch.

…

If Ruby had known what was going on over at the Sith academy chances are she wouldn't have enjoyed her meal as much as she had.

Cinder looked around the chamber she'd entered, no matter how many times she entered she was always impressed. Contrasted against the stone of the rest of the temple this room was made of a dark metal lit by glowing purple crystals that grew up the side of the wall, fanning out and spreading before forming an intricate spiderweb at the top of the room.

It was visually impressive, just like the master who resided in it. Darth Salem was not someone you ever wanted to mess with, by entering her room you instantly felt her power, it was hard to focus on anything else once you were near her.

"Master." Cinder said, stopping a few steps behind her master, who closed the book she'd been reading, setting it down and pushing it away from her before turning around to look at Cinder.

The first thing you saw when you looked at Darth Salem was the Force Corruption running through her, mostly because, while corruption was rampant it wasn't what you normally saw. Her skin was pure white, stained with deep purple vanes. The biggest difference was her eyes, instead of yellow they were deep red situated in a black void.

Cinder would never admit it, but Salem scared her. This was a Sith powerful enough that she had control over Force corruption, power enough to alter her very being. She was exceedingly old but she didn't show it. She'd never seen her Light Saber but she was sure she was a demon with it.

Salem was more powerful than her, more powerful than any Sith at the height of their power.

That scared Cinder and she highly doubted it would ever stop bothering her.

"Welcome my apprentice." Salem said, her voice calm as she looked over at the yellow eyed girl. "You have it?"

"Yes master." Cinder responded curtly, reaching into her robes and freeing the Holocron, the metal pyramid sitting in the palm of her hand.

"You know what to do." Salem said simply. Cinder nodded curtly in response which lead Salem to smile. "Then open it."

Cinder nodded, letting her emotions flood into her before ripping them free, forcing them down into her devise. The metal rising into the air. Cinder had done this before, now she had to take it further.

Rage flowed through her as she thought about the trouble this device had caused her, the anger it had induced and time it had wasted sitting their on her hand. It was not going to beat her this time, she was going to open it.

She clenched her fist and closed her eyes tight as she forced more energy into the Holocron.

 _Why isn't it opening!?_

 _We're never going to open it are we?_

 _Face it. We were always pathetic!_

Something in Cinder snapped as that thought entered her head, she screamed out at the top of her lungs, a cry of pure primal anger filled Salem's chambers. It was her Holocron, it belonged to her, it would respect her! It would open for her!

She screamed harder and longer than she ever had before. It was going to open, she knew it would. Because she was going to make it open. She was going to force it open.

 _Face it, you can't open it._

 _You're nothing, why would it waste its time with you._

"Open!" Cinder growled through gritted teeth.

 _You could never open it, you're scared, It will never open to you._

"I said open!" She growled again, directing ever bit of hate in her body towards the offending pyramid.

 _No, why would I…_

" **You will open for me!"** Cinder bellowed, lightining crackling around her fingers. **"I will not be stopped by you! I will get you open!"**

 _Face it, it doesn't want to open for us._

"I don't care!" __Cinder said quietly. "Nothing is going to stop me now"

A small storm exploding off her hands, she actually felt the burn on her fingers as she enveloped the Holocron in lightning.

The white hot sparks flew up, digging into the devises sides and the devise finally fell open, its four sides detatching and floating in the air, red dots and lines projected off their surface before they closed into another pyramid. Salem caught it before it could hit the ground, looking at the devise in her hand and then to what Cinder was holding in her hand.

"Another Holocron?" Cinder asked, confusion in her face as she looked over the second pyramid she now held which had apparently been hidden inside the first one she'd been handling for months. "I don't get it."

"Well, this is fascinating." Salem said quietly as she looked at the Holocron she held.

"You know what's going on?" Cinder asked, hastily adding: 'Master' when Salem glared at her.

"I have a theory." Salem said simply, walking over to her table and retrieving the book she had been reading earlier. She thumbed through it while Cinder took a look a look at the cover, her heart falling a little bit when she read the title.

'The Four maidens and other stories'

"Master…" She asked carefully, she could not afford to insult her master; but she really did have to ask.

"Yes, my apprentice?" Salem asked as she stopped flicking through the pages, apparently having found what she was looking for.

"That book… what is it?" Cinder asked, praying it was actually a proper book cleverly disguised as a book of children's stories.

"A collection of stories." Salem responded simply as she traced her finger down a page before looking up at Cinder. "Every story is inspired by something and I find stories last longer than historical texts, I've never seen anything resembling your Holocron in our archives, but I have here, I was checking earlier and I think you will find what I found interesting."

Cinder was confused as Salem handed her the book, pointing an elegant white finger at the appropriate bit of text.

… _While he was strong, he could not destroy the Sorcerers power, so he took the dark witch's book and tore the pages into multiple parts, stripping the book of its knowledge and scattering it, his hope being that no one would ever be able to reform the text and relearn its secrets._

Cinder looked up.

"I don't understand." She said simply. Salem let out a gentle laugh.

"No, I don't suppose you would. Well I told you every story was based of something. In this case I believe it is a toned-down modified retelling of an actual event involving an old Sith Lord. It is said their power was pulled from them and scattered by two jealous brothers, one of whom actually taught her said skills. They were separated and hidden."

"And how does that relate to the Holocron?" Cinder asked carefully, trying not to sound too stupid to avoid her master's potential wrath.

"I believe it is incomplete." She explained, floating the old Holocron back to Cinder. "You broke a lock, re open it and look at what it's actually showing you."

Cinder did as she was told, finding the Holocron infinitely easier to open up now. The sides opening up from the base to form a bigger triangle, projecting the lines and dots again. But now Cinder could focus on them…

"A star map…" She gasped, looking in awe at the coordinates floating in front of them.

"Correct." Salem said. "A map for you to follow. I know that temple, it's old and very powerful. I believe it will help you open the next part of the map. Follow it and find what's at its core, make regular reports back to me and I will advise as best I can. Make sure to bring your allies with you, these are Dark side locations and they will test you."

Cinder nodded and bowed respectfully.

"What ship should I take?" She asked, looking over at her master who smiled.

"Show the port staff this." She said, floating a small card over to the dark-haired girl. "Then take whatever you like."

Cinder nodded as the door in front of her opened, closing the second she was through it.

"Cinder!" Emerald called, looking up at her and smiling Widley. "How'd it go?"

"It went well." Cinder said, reforming the Holocron into its original smaller form. "Where's Mercury? We need to get going soon; we have a mission."

"Just dealing with some pests." She answered simply. "He'll be done soon."

"Good, then let's get going." Cinder said, moving forwards and heading towards the launch pads, nothing was going to stop her from opening the rest of this Holocron.

…

 **Authors Notes: I am so sorry about the wait, a combination of the Christmas holidays, being away from my PC and getting back into the swing of Uni life really hurt my productivity. Still I'm slightly better off now so hopefully there won't be as long a wait for future chapters.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts on the chapter/slag me off for taking so long.**


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